Study: Vladimir Putin would not have succeeded in persuading Alexandr Lukashenko to go to war
Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have been able to convince his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, to go to war against Ukraine, according to an assessment by a group of experts from the Institute for the Study of War . This conclusion was formulated after yesterday's meeting of the leaders of Moscow and Minsk.
Although they discussed training Belarusian pilots to launch nuclear bombs, American experts believe that the leader in Minsk avoided getting his country drawn into the war between Russia and Ukraine. According to experts, Aleksandr Lukashenko blocked Vladimir Putin's efforts to force Belarus to integrate into the Russian Federation. The two leaders have refrained from publicly discussing the invasion from the neighboring country, both saying instead that Belarus faces threats from the West. During Monday's talks, which Vladimir Putin considered "substantial", Moscow and Minsk agreed to strengthen cooperation in all areas, especially in the defense sector, notes Digi24. The Institute for the Study of War recalls that, according to a previous assessment, Alexandr Lukashenko uses the rhetoric of defending Belarus' borders against the West and NATO in order to avoid participating in the war started by Russia in Ukraine. The institute continues to estimate that the involvement of Belarus in the war started by the Russian Federation in Ukraine remains unlikely. The Minsk leader will now have to craft a speech that offers the Belarusian people a plausible explanation for why he has suddenly abandoned the rhetoric of a NATO invasion threat that he initially used to align himself with Vladimir Putin. We remind that Vladimir Putin's visit to Minsk caused fears in Kyiv that the Russian president would like to pressure his ally to join a new Russian offensive in Ukraine.
