Editor’s note: The way I understand this isn’t that Lukashenko is saying that he would join a Russian offensive westward of the kind Kiev is raising alarm about, but that he would get involved if NATO started it. Interestingly Belarus, the rebel Donbass republics, and the unrecognized Transnistria are the most Soviet-like of all the successors and are ideological and aesthetic fellow travelers.
The West realizes that if it sets off a conflict on the Russian border, Minsk won’t stand aside, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at a Defense Ministry meeting on military security on Monday, according to the BelTA news agency.
“They understand perfectly well that if they once again start a war in Donbass or somewhere else on the border with Russia, Belarus won’t stand aside. And it’s clear whose side Belarus will take. They understand it, which is why they have begun to strengthen their northern border, the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Although there is no reason to do it at the moment,” Lukashenko pointed out. “Nevertheless, they are deploying troops there, making clear statements about it. It’s about approximately 8,000 troops at this stage,” he added.
According to Lukashenko, “intense actions are underway around Russia under the assumption that it plans to attack Ukraine. “I don’t have information about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine, while if such plans existed, the Belarusian military, me included, would have been aware of them,” he said.
the Defense Ministry on Monday.
Lukashenko is certain that the West’s actions will confirm the correctness of his forecast soon. He recalled that he had instructed the defense minister and the chief of the Border Guard not to yield to provocations or provoke conflicts or clashes. At the same time, the defense minster and the chief of the General Staff were ordered to draft a plan for retaliation against a possible aggression and unlawful actions towards Belarus.
Source: TASS