As of: March 29, 2024, 4:58 a.m
By: Paula Völkner
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Press
Split
The alliance between Putin and Lukashenko is worrying. Now Lukashenko is threatening NATO again and portraying himself as a victim of Western provocation.
Grodno – Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is considered a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Ukraine war began in February 2022, among other things, from Belarusian territory, which Putin used as a staging area and attacked Ukraine from there. In 2023, the merging of Russian and Belarusian troops and Putin's announcement that nuclear weapons would be stationed in Belarus caused an uproar and raised questions about whether Belarus could join the Russian war and attack the West. Lukashenko pretends to be ignorant and innocent.
Speaking to the Belarusian state agency
Belta
, the Belarusian dictator dismissed the West's concerns as “complete nonsense”. “We don’t want to attack anyone,” Lukashenko claimed and told the state-loyal media that it was about building a defense system. The neighboring countries and the West are to blame, said Lukashenko: “They are just waiting for it. They provoke us so that we react to them in some way.” Lukashenko claimed that it was the Western states that had an interest in waging war in Ukraine. “Stupid people,” the Belarusian dictator calls the Western rulers and threatens, “If they attack us, we will react very seriously.”
Alexander Lukashenko (l), with his ally Vladimir Putin in Sochi in February 2023 (archive image) © Sergei Chirikov/picture alliance/dpa
Lukashenko is considered one of Putin's most important allies in Russia's war against Ukraine. As an ally of Putin, Lukashenko is also spreading a narrative in which it is not Russia, as the country that started the war in Ukraine, but the West that is portrayed as the warmonger.
Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are preparing for defense
Even before the start of the war in Ukraine, there was great concern about an attack in neighboring Baltic countries such as Latvia and Lithuania. Concern has grown since the war. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis commented on this in Brussels in February. “If Ukraine falls, it will be clear to everyone that we will be next. Putin doesn't stop. He can’t stop,” Landsbergis said, according to
Tagesschau
reports . Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, there have been repeated indirect and direct threats from Moscow against the Baltic states.
Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are therefore preparing for a defense event. “Baltic Defense Line” is the name of the major military project that the three NATO states agreed on in January 2024. Accordingly, hundreds of bunker facilities are to be built along NATO's external borders with Belarus and Russia from 2025. The relationship between the EU state Lithuania and the autocratically ruled Belarus has deteriorated sharply in recent years.
“Steadfast Defender”: NATO practices alliance case
A series of NATO maneuvers will take place in the Baltic states, among others, in the coming months. “Steadfast Defender” is the name of the NATO exercise. 19 member states with around 80,000 soldiers are taking part in the exercise, which is primarily intended to train the rapid deployment of troops over long distances. So NATO is practicing the alliance case with “Steadfast Defender”. Defense expert Robin Allers explained in February that the exercise should also be a reference to Russia.
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“The major NATO exercise is not a provocation, but a message to Russia: We are clearly showing what we have. Because there is a concrete threat and the realization that there can actually be war in Europe,” explained the associate professor at the Oslo Defense University. NATO also wants to prepare specifically for the event of a crisis, said Aller.
Lukashenko threatens NATO states: “Anyone who has violated the national border should be destroyed.”
However, Lukashenko seems to see the exercise as a provocation. Not far from the Belarusian border with Lithuania, Lukashenko inspected the Belarusian troops stationed there on Tuesday (March 26). At the meeting, the commander of the troops of the North-West Operational Command, Alexander Naumenko, referred to the implementation of the exercise in countries such as Poland and Lithuania,
Belta
reported .
Lukashenko once again threatened the NATO states during the visit near the Lithuanian border: “I will say it publicly: Any provocation at the state border should be stopped with the use of weapons. We are serious. Anyone who has violated the state border should be destroyed.”
(pav)