Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Friday that the lack of a cordial relationship with Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin could have resulted in Belarus being in the same position as Ukraine.
Lukashenko made the comments during a meeting regarding issues of Belarusian and Russian cooperation, the BelTA news agency reported. The meeting precedes a summit between both nations scheduled to take place on Monday in Minsk, Belarus’ capital.
“We will never be Russia’s enemy,” Lukashenko said. “And will never give Russia the cold shoulder. This is the closest country to us, our closest peoples. I think that while we are in power, we will adhere to this trend. Had it been otherwise, it would have been like in Ukraine.”
Lukashenko said that his country is with Russia, but “as a sovereign and independent state,” adding that it controls its own territory.
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Ever since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Belarus has emerged as one of Russia’s closest strategic allies as Putin faces rebuke from the West. Lukashenko has publicly supported the Russian leader, even allowing Russian troops to enter Ukraine from the Belarus-Ukraine border, providing closer access to the capital city of Kyiv.
“I am saying this absolutely sincerely: with all the difficulties, if the Russian Federation—the leadership—wants to build relations with the sovereign independent state of Belarus, if Russia perceives us as a sovereign and independent state but a very close one, very reliable, where everything Russian—from the language to Russian traditions—is venerated, we are ready to build the relations,” Lukashenko said Friday. “Yet we should always proceed from the premise that we are a sovereign and independent state.”
Rumors have abounded in recent months regarding Belarus inserting itself militarily in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Ukrainian officials previously warned Belarus that the country would “respond as harshly as we respond to all invaders on the territory of Ukraine.”
Even if soldiers got the order from Minsk to join the war effort, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense has expressed uncertainty of Belarus’ impact in that theoretical scenario. Meanwhile in a report from earlier this week, The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) maintains that Belarusian involvement remains “extraordinarily unlikely.”
It would pose potential long-term consequences for Belarus itself, Javed Ali, a University of Michigan professor specializing in international policy and diplomacy, previously told Newsweek.
“It comes with considerable risks for the Belarusians. Look at the pounding that the Russian military has taken in Ukraine,” Ali said. “Belarus is such a small country. It has such limited military resources. Losing a few hundred troops or a couple thousand would be devastating for them.”
Artyom Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, previously told Newsweek that he sees “zero evidence” of any coercion on Putin’s behalf.
He said that multiple indicators actually exemplify economic relations between Minsk and Moscow, with the suggestion that Putin is conceding on numerous demands by Lukashenko—such as giving him even cheaper oil than before, restructuring old loans, giving new ones, and providing access to Russian ports for Belarus to reorient its sanctioned exports.
“The narrative that Lukashenko is resisting some mythical pressure from Moscow is very popular, I know that,” said Shraibman, who is originally from Belarus, but now lives in Poland. “But the evidence of this are [sic] simply nonexistent. To my eye at least.”
As part of next week’s summit, Lukashenko said Belarusian and Russian officials will primarily discuss economics as well as “talk about the military-political situation around our states.”
