Moscow, Apr. 12, (dpa/GNA) – Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has complained at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin about an alleged threat to his country from the West.
“The situation is difficult. What worries me most is the position of the Polish leadership,” Lukashenko said during a televised conversation in Moscow on Thursday.
Lukashenko criticized the military manoeuvres held in the Baltic states and the stationing of additional NATO units in countries neighbouring Belarus.
“Americans have been deployed and Germans, which is astonishing – they have not learnt the lesson,” said Lukashenko, in an apparent allusion to World War II, when soldiers of the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Belarus was also forced to reinforce its units near the border due to NATO’s high military presence said Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin.
“But we have no plans to fight anywhere,” he said.
Both Putin and Lukashenko denied any intention of attacking European countries. Relations between the West and allies Russia and Belarus are tense.
Russia has been waging a war against neighbouring Ukraine for more than two years. Thousands of Russian soldiers are stationed in Belarus, and Lukashenko has allowed Russia to use his country as a deployment area for attacks on Ukraine.