Belarus believes that Poland is considering taking over the western part of Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday. He warned Warsaw against such a move, warning his country would have to intervene if it did.
“We cannot allow the Poles to encircle us,” he said. “As I once said, the Ukrainians and the Russians will ask us to preserve [Ukraine’s] integrity. So that [Poles] don’t take a bite out of it.”
Belarus facilitated Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine by allowing its troops to use its territory, but declined to deploy its own troops to the battlefield. Speaking during a visit to a factory, Lukashenko claimed that Western powers, Poland in particular, would like to drag his nation into the conflict. Warsaw acts boldly because it is being armed and financed by the US, he said.
“That is why I have to keep the armed forces on high alert in the west and in the south,” he said. “I have deployed 10 units along the border behind the border guard, so that nobody gets inside Belarus.”