“No one is going to send you into this slaughter.” Alexander Lukashenko said that to Belarusian servicemen, according to the state-owned news outlet BELTA, at a ceremony for graduates of higher military educational institutions and senior officers.
The Belarusian leader told them that his country will not send its troops to fight in Ukraine. Belarusians, he said, are a peaceful people with no wish for war, but they have no intention of bowing “to the enemy”. “The Belarusian people endured incredible hardships during the years of the Nazi occupation, so they reject war at a genetic level,” he said. “We are a peaceful nation and we do not want war, but we refuse to bow down before any enemy.”
He blamed outside forces for the conflict dragging on. Lukashenko claimed that an international “party of war” is doing everything it can to prolong the fighting in Ukraine. The European Union, he said, is “hypocritically declaring its commitment to peace” while it “has openly embarked on a path of militarisation, which practically means NATO.” Billions are being spent on offensive strike weapons, he added, while “absurd hysteria is being fanned around a sham ‘threat from the east’.”
He also accused Western politicians of resenting Belarus. “Certain Western politicians are simply irritated by our autonomy and independence, our alliance with Russia, and our commitment to a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine,” he said. He called the war in Ukraine tragic: “We do not need war; it is tragic that war is going on in Ukraine. We advocate for a peaceful resolution of issues, but as I have stated, the international ‘party of war’ does not want this.”
