In an interview published on Sunday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is an attempt to “push” Moscow into using nuclear weapons.
“Such escalation on the part of Ukraine is an attempt to push Russia to asymmetric actions. Let’s say to use nuclear weapons,” he said in an interview with local outlet Rossiya. “I know for sure that Ukraine would be very happy if Russia or we used tactical nuclear weapons there. They will applaud it.”
Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, asserted that Kyiv is deliberately provoking Moscow into taking nuclear action to consolidate international support against Russia.
“We would hardly have allies left,” Lukashenko continued. “There would be no… sympathetic countries left.”
Concerns about nuclear escalation in the conflict in Ukraine have heightened since the war began more than two years ago. Russia has repeatedly warned that it will respond decisively to any threats to its security, with Putin stating that “whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to consequences you have never seen in history.”
Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer and author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Digital that last week, “Technically, a tactical nuclear strike can be justified under the Russian doctrine, given that Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity have been violated.”
However, Koffler also said she does not anticipate a nuclear strike at this time.
Lukashenko’s comments regarding the threat of nuclear warfare are not the first issued by the Putin ally since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Previously, Lukashenko stated that he would “use nuclear weapons if the enemy crosses the border of the Union State. There will be no red lines, the answer will be instant.”
The Union State refers to a 1999 agreement between Belarus and Russia that forms a “supranational union” binding the two nations under a tight alliance.
Koffler believes that Lukashenko’s comments were “almost certainly… coordinated with Putin.”
“Russia and Belarus are part of the Union State. Their military doctrines are aligned, and their forces are loosely integrated from the command and control standpoint,” she continued.
Despite the close ties between the two nations, Minsk has not yet sent troops into Ukraine to assist Russia in its more than two-year-long invasion. However, it has allowed Russian soldiers to deploy from its borders into Ukraine.
Lukashenko said on Sunday that Belarusian troops had been moved to the shared border with Ukraine following Kyiv’s alleged deployment of approximately 120,000 troops there, reported Reuters, citing Belarusian news outlet BelTA.
“The goal of this move likely is, at minimum, to create the perception of opening the second front or to pre-stage forces for the possibility of opening the second front on behalf of Russia – threatening Ukrainian forces and making them feel stretched,” Koffler said.
Koffler also noted that Lukashenko’s comments serve a secondary purpose by attempting to exert “psychological pressure” on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and create “uncertainty about what the next step will be, as far as Russia-Belarus joint actions.”
The exact number of Belarusian troops at the border remains unclear, but according to figures cited in a report by Reuters, one-third of Minsk’s fighting force, believed to number around 20,000, is thought to be deployed there.
Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian border service, said on Sunday that despite Lukashenko’s statements, the situation at the Ukraine-Belarus border remains unchanged.
“As we can see, Lukashenko’s rhetoric does not change either, constantly escalating the situation with regularity to please the terrorist country,” Demchenko said, according to Reuters.
“We are not seeing any increase in the number of equipment or personnel of Belarusian units near our border.”