MOSCOW: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, certainly one of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, mentioned in an interview broadcast on Wednesday (Oct 23) that deploying any overseas forces within the Ukraine battle would inevitably result in an escalation.
The feedback got here because the US mentioned for the primary time that it had seen evidence of North Korean troops in Russia and South Korean lawmakers mentioned about 3,000 soldiers had been sent.
Lukashenko, in separate interviews with the BBC and Russian state tv, additionally mentioned that any use of Russian nuclear weapons now deployed in Belarus would require his private assent.
And the president, in energy since 1994, mentioned he would run once more in presidential elections in January if urged to take action.
Lukashenko dismissed the notion that North Korea had dispatched troops to be deployed alongside Russian forces within the greater than 2 1/2-year-old battle in Ukraine.
“Garbage”, Lukashenko informed the BBC on the sidelines of the summit of the BRICS grouping of countries. “Understanding his character Putin would by no means attempt to persuade one other nation to contain its military in Russia’s particular operation in Ukraine.”
Deploying overseas troops, he mentioned, “could be a step in the direction of the escalation of the battle if the armed forces of any nation, even Belarus, have been on the contact line”.
And that might immediate Ukraine’s allies to level to overseas involvement “so NATO troops could be deployed to Ukraine”.
The Kremlin on Monday sidestepped a query on whether or not North Korean troops have been going to combat in Ukraine, however mentioned it was Moscow’s sovereign proper to develop ties with Pyongyang.
Lukashenko informed the BBC that Putin “won’t ever use the weapons stationed in Belarus with out the Belarusian president’s consent”. He mentioned he was “utterly prepared” to make use of them – “in any other case, why have these weapons? However provided that the boot of 1 (overseas) soldier steps into Belarus. We’ve no plans to assault anybody”.
Nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from Belarus after the top of Soviet rule, however Russian tactical missiles have been once more deployed by mutual settlement, beginning in June 2023.
Talking to Rossiya-1 tv, Lukashenko mentioned he was prepared to hunt one other time period in workplace. “If … my supporters inform me it needs to be carried out, I’ll run,” he mentioned.
Lukashenko was elected to a sixth time period in 2020 in an election denounced within the West as rigged. Unprecedented avenue protests in opposition to that final result have been crushed by a police crackdown after Putin provided Lukashenko his full help.
