By Brian Whitmore
Alyaksandr Lukashenka warned the West this week that it was risking World War III by continuing to arm Ukraine, even as he allowed Russia to deploy nuclear-capable missiles on Belarusian territory near the Ukrainian border.
In a rambling letter to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres on May 23, the Belarusian autocrat wrote that the West’s “disrespect for” what he called Russia’s “legitimate interests” led to the current East-West tension and “provoked a heated conflict on the territory of Ukraine.” Lukashenka also called on the West to “refrain from the supply of weapons” to Ukraine in order to “prevent a regional conflict in Europe from escalating into a full-scale world war.”
In the letter, which was delivered as Lukashenka was meeting Putin in Sochi, he also decried the fact that much of the world views him as a co-aggressor in the war. “We are not aggressors, as some states try to present us. Belarus has never been the initiator of any wars or conflicts,” he wrote.