Lukashenko says NATO, backed by US & EU, entered into 'global confrontation' with Russia

North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO has entered into a global confrontation with Russia executing the plans of Europe and the United States, waging a proxy war against Moscow, said President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday, May 26 at a meeting of the Ministry of Defense. Lukashenko, in recent weeks, berated Poland, and other European Union allied countries for “dismembering" Ukraine by flowing in military equipment and advanced weaponry that has spiralled the war into a larger conflict. 

"What worries us is that they are ready, the Poles and NATO, to come out, to help take western Ukraine like it was before 1939,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s staunch ally, who consorted in the brutal invasion of Ukraine from Minsk’s frontiers said in state televised comments. Belarus’ Ministry of Defense’s press service quoted the pro-Russian authoritarian leader asserting that the geopolitical events unfolding in the region testify to the high dynamics of changes in threats to the military security of Belarus. 

Warsaw, Ukraine’s strongest regional ally, has supplied weapons worth $7 billion to its neighbour and has taken the most hardline position against Moscow’s military intervention. Warsaw has supplied advanced weaponry to Kyiv that includes 2S1 Gvozdika, self-propelled artillery guns, Grad multiple rocket launchers, 200 T-72 battle tanks, and missiles compatible with the Ukrainian Air Force’s MIG-29 and Su-27 fighter jets. 

"Views on the use of military force and methods of armed struggle are being transformed. The states and their satellites continue to pursue the course of aggravating relations with the whole world in fact,” Belarus’ President said. 

“They [NATO] are building up their military presence near the borders of Belarus as an ally of Russia and are conducting large-scale exercises.” 

Belarus' authoritarian leader blames West, and NATO for 'provoking Russia'

Belarusian leader had also earlier said in an interview that he hadn’t speculated that the 10-week-old conflict would “drag on this way,” laying blame on Kyiv for “provoking Russia.” Lukashenko, Putin’s longtime ally, has been widely criticised during the war for using his country’s border as a launchpad for Russian troops that infiltrated Ukraine. He warned NATO of a joint response with Russia in retaliation to the Allied military exercises involving troops from NATO member countries, and the United States military just miles from the two ally nations’ borders. 

Relations between Belarus’ President and Poland have thwarted migrant spillover on the Belarusian-Polish border, which the former blames on European Union. A standoff between Belarusian and Polish border guards and subsequent shootings of the migrants has become a flashpoint between the two neighbouring countries, and the reason for overall tensions between Russia, its ally Belarus and the bloc. Poland’s defence ministry labels the migrant issue as a “manufactured crisis” by Belarus' authoritarian president, and that Belarus uses migrants as pawns to blackmail the EU. 

Belarus and Russia point to the United States and its allies for creating migrant problems referring to the wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accuses Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating tensions, Putin in a hardened tone has issued televised responses, saying, "Let's not forget where these crises with migrants came from … Is Belarus a pioneer in these problems? No, the reasons were created by Western and European countries themselves.” 

As tensions soared to new heights between Russia, the West’s defence Alliance NATO, the EU bloc and the US, Lukashenko warned that NATO’s guise of the defensive theme for military manoeuvres near the borders of Belarus in Poland and the Baltic countries, and its transfer of troops from America and Western Europe, will provoke a global confrontation with Moscow. Tensions also historically simmered after the non-aggression pact was signed in 1939 ahead of World War II that transferred control of Polish territories between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Most of the Soviet-controlled territories now fall under either Belarus or Ukraine.

Kaliningrad oblast formerly German East Prussia located on the Pregolya River, which was home to great philosopher Immanuel Kant, was ethnically cleansed of its German inhabitants and is now administered by Russia. It lies between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic Coast.