2023-09-27 06:00:15
Belarusian foreign minister does not plan to go to war with Russia over Ukraine
The foreign minister of Belarus, which maintains a strategic partnership with Russia, spoke about the conflict in Ukraine with the Associated Press (AP). Could Sergei Aleinik envisage a situation where Belarus supports the war in Ukraine alongside Russia, AP asked him: “My answer is no,” did he declare.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has relied on Russian subsidies and political support to rule the former Soviet nation with an iron fist for nearly three decades, has authorized the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022, at the start of the invasion. But Mr Lukashenko opposed the idea of taking part in the fighting.
Sergei Aleinik said he also could not imagine a situation in which Russia would order his country to use the tactical nuclear weapons recently deployed in Belarus. “I do not see such an option because it is above all an instrument of defense,” he said of the missiles. But if Belarus were invaded, “I will not exclude any instrument to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country”he added.
Mr. Aleinik said that the stationing of tactical nuclear missiles in Belarus is a response to “the very great militarization” along its western border. The Polish military, for example, plans to double its armed forces and bring more heavy weapons to the border, supported by a growing presence of U.S. and other NATO forces.
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Aleinik briefly mentioned the war in Ukraine, saying he was “very painful to see” how Ukrainians had been suffering for a year and a half. “Unfortunately, Ukraine and its people have become a pawn in the West’s great game to preserve its own global hegemony”did he declare. “It is clear that by increasing arms deliveries to this country, the West is determined to continue the war until the last Ukrainian”he added.
The Belarusian minister also declared that the union between Minsk and Moscow covered almost all areas and that his country was establishing technological cooperation with Russia to counter Western sanctions and make the country self-sufficient in the production of products previously imported from Western countries.
#Belarusian #foreign #minister #war #Russia