Aleksandr Lukashenko, announced by the Central Election Commission of Belarus as the President, intends to deploy a contingent of the Belarusian army on the border with Ukraine.
Ukrainian News Agency learned this from a statement posted on the website of the President of Belarus.
Lukashenko said that Belarus and Russia allegedly announced plans to hold a joint exercise on the border with Ukraine long ago.
"This is also important for us, because we will have to deploy a whole contingent of the Belarusian army there. They also talked about this in Luninets. And here it is not connected with any occupation. We just want to protect our southern border. And such politicians should pay attention to the concentration of troops not only on the border of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, but also Ukraine. We were not the first to start paying attention to our southern border. Ukrainians began to gather troops there. I don’t understand why," Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko also commented on the U.S. appeal to Belarusian diplomats in the U.S.
"Literally a day ago, the threatening position of the U.S. Department of State was brought to my attention. They came to our diplomats in New York and threatened us: yes, if you allow Putin and Russia, then we will impose sanctions. If you return these nuclear weapons to Belarus there will be this and that. You see, some kind of mentoring tone in relation to Belarus. So I want to draw their (attention) to what I said in Luninets. I think there is no need to add anything here. We do not need any war. But the same Americans, through the hands of Poles, Latvians, are personally pushing us to these actions. We were a donor of security in the region. We have always been appreciated for this. Why are you pushing us and making us aggressors in 2020? According to their terminology. Why was this necessary? And today they threaten us," Lukashenko added.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on January 21, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense announced that Russia was delivering tanks, artillery mounts and ammunition to the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The United States believes that Russia can start hostilities in Ukraine at any moment and has ordered the families of the embassy employees in Ukraine to leave the country due to possible military actions by Russia.
The UK is also evacuating part of the embassy staff in Ukraine due to the threat from Russia.
NATO is increasing its military presence in Eastern Europe due to the threat of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, the European Union does not plan to evacuate the families of diplomats from Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asks citizens not to panic and critically evaluate information about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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