The Belarusian president claims that outside actors are plotting to take over Western Ukraine and Belarus.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed concern over attempts by Western countries to dismember Ukraine over Russia's ongoing military operation in the country.
During a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Monday, Lukashenko claimed that both himself and his host were concerned about the behavior of some Polish and NATO politicians. He cited the US-led military bloc's move to concentrate troops on the western borders of the Union State of Belarus and Russia.
The politicians are taking measures to dismember Ukraine. The Polish and NATO members are worried that they are ready to help, as before 1939, Western Ukraine, the Belarusian president said.
In his opinion, the West has a similar strategy when it comes to Western Belarus. He didn't offer evidence to back up the assertion.
Lukashenko said that he believes that Kiev may need Moscow and Minsk's help to save Ukraine's territorial integrity at some point in the future.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Polish citizens would be granted special legal status in his country, saying that the Ukrainian and Polish people have been inseparable for a long time. The Polish President Andrzej Duda said he hopes that there would be no borders between Poland and Ukraine in the future.
Lukashenko said that the attempts to dismember Ukraine represent the most dangerous trend in Ukraine at the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Eurasian military alliance consisting of several former Soviet republics earlier this month. He said that thousands of troops have already been created in order to enter Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers. He claimed that the West wanted to not only weaken Russia as much as possible, but also to make the conflict wider. If this is the idea, then probably no one will be able to sit aside, he said.
Lukashenko's warnings about Warsaw's intention to reclaim the part of Ukraine that once belonged to Poland before it was resigned to the Soviet Union in 1939 echoed remarks made by Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service SVR Sergey Naryshkin. Last month, he said that Poland might be plotting with the US to occupy western Ukraine with peacekeepers under the guise of military exercises. Warsaw has denied all of these claims.
Russia's intelligence chief is spreading false accusations against Poland and the US, convincing falsely that both countries are preparing for a Polish annexation of western Ukraine Stanislaw Zaryn, the Minister-Special Services Coordinator, said.
Russia attacked Ukraine in late February, after Kiev s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French Minsk Protocol was designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists that the Russian offensive was unprovoked and has denied that it was planning to take the two republics by force.