Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently gave an hour-long interview to Al Arabiya in which he talked about the Ukrainian Conflict among several other topics. As regards that subject which is more relevant than all others to his country, he explained why Belarus has absolutely no intention of attacking Ukraine, argued that NATO isn’t stirring the pot between them, and even apologized to Zelensky for his harsh rhetoric in recent months amidst their tensions. These points will now be expanded upon.
Beginning in order, he pointed out how vulnerable Belarus is to Ukrainian drone attacks, reminded his interlocutor of how much Belarusians suffered from war in the past, and touched upon the difficulties of opening up such a lengthy new front. All of these points are sensible and accordingly reinforce suspicions that this was always a fake news provocation aimed at worsening bilateral ties. Lukashenko also warned in connection with this scenario that it would likely lead to NATO intervening in Ukraine’s support.
Moving along, he opined that “I would not say that NATO is stirring this pot. For NATO to intervene in these processes in Ukraine right now is very dangerous. They can provoke not just an escalation, they can provoke a nuclear conflict. And that would be it.” Nevertheless, he acknowledged that maybe some forces within the bloc “would like to provoke some kind of confrontation, but I do not think that is the consensus among the leaders of NATO member states.” Lukashenko thus doesn’t take this too seriously.
As for his final point, he explained that his harsh rhetoric was in response to Zelensky’s inappropriate threats but advised his counterpart that “He needs to calm down and take it as it is: he should not provoke me, Belarusians. In Belarus, there are very many people who want peace just as much as he and Ukrainians do.” This lends credence to what was speculated here about how Lukashenko himself and many of his compatriots don’t really like Russia’s special operation but hide their true views about it.
The relevance of what he said about the Ukrainian Conflict during his latest interview is that he’s doing his utmost, even going a bit overboard some might compellingly argue as regards his apology to Zelensky, to counteract false perceptions of Belarus as a threat to either Ukraine or NATO. He’s been negotiating with Trump 2.0 for the past year and a half over what he himself hyped up as a “big deal”, which the latest artificially manufactured tensions with Ukraine threatened to derail, ergo his deference.
It’s understandably more important for him to avoid a major war than to maintain his personal pride at the possible expense of his life if the aforesaid worst-case scenario then materializes due to him putting his ego over national interests. At the same time, hopefully he earlier briefed Putin about his approach in order to avoid him thinking that he’s moving closer towards “defecting” given his surprising apology to Zelensky that won’t be received well by many in Moscow.
In terms of the bigger picture, Belarus is under enormous Western and nowadays even Ukrainian pressure as well, so its position isn’t enviable nor is Lukashenko’s in trying to manage this. What’s most important for Russia is that he and his country remain loyal to the Union State of which they’re a part. He can say whatever he believes is in his country’s interests so long as he doesn’t ultimately betray its objective interests by “defecting” from the Union State. Putin will likely keep a very close eye on him.
