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Alexander Lukashenko
Photo: Maxim Guchek/AP
The Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has ruled out direct deployment of his army in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
"This is complete nonsense," said Lukashenko, according to the state agency Belta, in response to questions from Russian journalists.
"If we get directly involved in this conflict with the armed forces, with soldiers, we're not contributing anything, we're just making it worse."
According to him, the Belarusian army, which is 35,000 to 40,000 strong, will not solve the problem of this campaign for Russia.
"We don't interfere, we don't kill anyone, we don't send soldiers there because it's not necessary," Lukashenko said.
Belarus supports Russia, but its role is different.
Belarus is heavily dependent on Moscow.
Lukashenko has already made the country available as a deployment area for Russian troops.
Russian air raids on Ukraine are also flown from there.
After material losses by the Russian army, Belarus is also making tanks and other weapons available.
At the same time, the country takes brutal action against members of the opposition and sentences many to long prison terms.
Lukashenko's balancing act
Ukraine regards the neighboring country as a belligerent because of its support for Russia's war of aggression and also keeps troops in reserve in case it has to repel a direct attack from Belarus.
The political analyst Artjom Schraibman told SPIEGEL that Lukashenko is practicing a balancing act: while he wants to assure Putin that Belarus is “firmly at the side of the Russian brothers”, he wants to promise his own citizens that the country will not get involved in the war.
(Read the full interview here.)
In the conversation with the Russian journalists, Lukashenko also spoke out in favor of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
However, he claimed that Poland and the US were preventing Ukraine from negotiating.
kko/dpa