Alexander Lukashenko apologized this Monday to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his previous comments and emphasized that Belarus has no intention of entering the war, in an interview with the Arab channel Al Arabiya published on its official website and reported by meduza.io.
The apologies refer to statements made by the Belarusian dictator in late May 2026, when he described Zelensky's words as "rhetoric" and suggested that "maybe he smoked something, injected something... something happened to him," in response to Ukrainian commander Robert Brovdi, who stated that Ukraine had identified around 500 potential targets in Belarusian territory.
“Perhaps I exaggerated, but it was a response to his inappropriate statements,” Lukashenko acknowledged in the interview. “If Vladimir Alexandrovich was offended, I apologize for those words. Perhaps it wasn't necessary to say them, considering that, after all, he is at war. However, on the other hand, he should understand that here we often say: as you sing, so shall you bury.”
Apologies, however, came with a warning: Lukashenko urged Zelenski to "calm down" and stop "provoking the Belarusians", and emphasized that Ukraine has "absolutely nothing" to fear from Belarus.
The central argument of the dictator to justify his pacifist stance is not moral, but strategic: fear. "Belarus is very vulnerable militarily," he admitted. "Because Belarus is within the reach of the Ukrainian army. We fully understand that our main vital, productive, and logistical objectives will be affected. According to their statements, they have already identified 500 such targets on Belarusian territory."
Lukashenko also stated that he consulted the matter with Vladimir Putin, and quoted the Russian president's words: "We understand that Belarus's involvement in the war or conflict in any capacity is unacceptable. It would do more harm than good."
This is not the first time that Lukashenko has resorted to this double game of apologies and complicity. As Zelenski himself revealed in January 2025 during an interview with the host Lex Fridman, Lukashenko called him days after the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022 to apologize with a similar argument: "It wasn't me. The missiles were launched from my territory, but it was Putin who fired them." Zelenski responded by calling him a "murderer."
Despite those apologies in 2022, Belarus continued to be a strategic platform for Russia: it allowed the use of its territory for the initial invasion, hosts Russian troops and missiles, and in December 2024, Lukashenko signed a new treaty with Moscow under which Russia extends its nuclear umbrella to Belarus, even requesting the new Oreshnik missile from Putin.
In April 2026, Zelenski had already warned that military activity in Belarus had increased and that Russia might attempt to draw the country into the conflict. The pattern repeats itself: aggressive statements, calculated apologies, and uninterrupted cooperation with the Kremlin.
Lukashenko, who has governed Belarus since 1994 and is known as the "last dictator in Europe," began his seventh term in March 2025 following elections in which he officially received 86.82% of the votes, widely questioned for fraud. Since the protests of 2020, his regime has opened over 6,000 political cases and holds more than 1,000 political prisoners.
The question that remains is whether these new apologies carry more weight than those from 2022, when missiles had already struck Ukrainian soil, launched precisely from the territory that Lukashenko claims he does not want to take to war.
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