Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has expressed concern over alleged attempts by Western countries to “dismember” Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing military operation in the country.
During his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Monday, Lukashenko claimed both him and his counterpart were concerned by the behavior of some Polish and NATO politicians, as well as by the military alliance’s move to concentrate troops on the western borders of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
“The politicians are taking steps to dismember Ukraine. We are worried that they, the Poles and NATO members, are ready to come out, to ‘help’ in this way, to take away, as before 1939, Western Ukraine,” the Belarusian president said.
In his opinion, the West has “a similar strategy” when it comes to Western Belarus.
“We are keeping our ears open,” Lukashenko said, emphasizing his belief that at some point Kiev would need Moscow and Minsk’s help to save Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Polish citizens would be granted a special legal status in his country, saying that “mentally, the Ukrainian and Polish people have been inseparable for a long time.” The news followed remarks by Polish President Andrzej Duda, who expressed hope that in the future there would be no borders between Poland and Ukraine.
Speaking at the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization – a Eurasian military alliance consisting of several former Soviet republics – earlier this month, Lukashenko said that the “attempts to dismember Ukraine” represent “the most dangerous trend in Ukraine today.” He also said that “thousands-strong units have already been created in order to enter Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers.”
He claimed that the West wanted to not only “weaken Russia as much as possible” but also to make the conflict “blaze wider.”