Lukashenko said at the outset of the war that it would probably last 3-4 days and that Ukrainian President Zelensky would run away at the first sign of trouble. The Belarusian dictator has been criticized for his support of the war and for allowing Russia to use Belarus as a starting point for the invasion of Ukraine. Lukashenko said he doubts that the "Russian operation is going according to the plan." A sure sign that it isn't, and also a sign that he's trying to distance himself from Putin should it continue to go sideways. The pair have been despotic allies for nearly twenty years.
Source: Associated Press
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, but he said he didn’t expect the 10-week-old conflict to “drag on this way.”
He also spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine but wouldn’t say if Russian President Vladimir Putin had plans to launch such a strike.
Lukashenko said Moscow, which launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 — partly from his territory — had to act because Kyiv was “provoking Russia.”
“But I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it,” he said, speaking at Independence Palace in Minsk. “I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on.”
