Russia: Lukashenko says he never discussed ‘attack’ on Ukraine with Putin

Lukashenko

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he never discussed any "attack" on Ukraine with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

He made the comments during the talks between the two leaders in the Kremlin.

"The military-political specter has been put in the lead through the efforts of our Western partners," he said.

Lukashenko said the West is unlikely to succeed.

"They lost the first round," he said. "They are now, as I see, starting a second round, scaring the entire world by saying we will attack Ukraine tomorrow, encircle it, destroy it and so on."

"Although we didn’t have [these] plans when we discussed these issues," the president said.

Russia and Belarus will continue to hold military exercises, he said.

"We will teach people to fight a war," he said. "There’s no way around it."

Lukashenko said he attended joint exercises of the two countries the day before.

"I looked at the Russian units and the Belarusian ones," he said. "There were a lot of foreigners. Very impressive."

He said he planned to attend an "interesting event" the next day. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier during the meeting that they planned to attend an event that’s part of the military exercises.

As the meeting wrapped up, the Belarusian president thanked his vis-а-vis for the opportunity to have face-to-face talks.