Belarusian dictator Lukashenko makes startling admission that he and Putin are ‘the most harmful and toxic people on this planet’ and ‘co-aggressors’ in front of uncomfortable-looking Vladimir
- Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko held a summit with Putin yesterday
- There is speculation that the Russian leader will make him join the war in Ukraine
- Both regimes lock up, torture, humiliate and exile their political enemies
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has admitted that he and Vladimir Putin are the “most toxic people on this planet”.
The couple held a summit yesterday amid speculation the Kremlin leader will force the Minsk tyrant to join his war in Ukraine.
So far, Lukashenko has resisted being part of the war.
But in a video clip that may later be useful to war crimes investigators, Lukashenko portrayed himself and Putin as evil pantomime villains.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has admitted he and Vladimir Putin are the ‘most toxic people on this planet’
The couple held a summit yesterday amid speculation that the Kremlin chief will force the Minsk tyrant to join his war in Ukraine
“You know, we’re both co-aggressors,” he confessed.
“The most harmful [and] toxic people on this planet. We only have one dispute – which is the most [toxic]?
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] says I am. I’m already starting to think he is.
Lukashenko told reporters: “Well, [we] decided that we are both [equally toxic]. That’s all.
Putin smiled and fiddled with his papers but seemed to agree with comments from Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss
‘And if someone today thinks of tearing us apart [apart]to force us to separate….[they will not].’
Putin smiled and fingered his papers but seemed to agree with what Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss, said.
Both leaders use their secret services to torture and humiliate their political enemies, according to human rights groups and opposition politicians.
Their political enemies are mostly locked up or forced into exile.
Putin met Lukashenko on a rare visit to Belarus, fueling fears in Kyiv that he intends to pressure his former Soviet ally into joining a new ground offensive that would open a new front against the Ukraine.
Putin’s visit for talks with the Belarusian president was his first to Minsk since 2019 and the Russian president.
The Kremlin has for years sought deeper integration with Belarus, which depends on Moscow for cheap oil and loans, but Lukashenko has so far resisted outright unification with Russia, although be a key ally in the war.
However, speculation grew ahead of Putin’s visit that he would pressure Lukashenko to send his troops to Ukraine alongside the Russian military after a string of defeats for Moscow in nearly ten months of fighting.
Putin’s troops have been pushed back in northern, northeastern and southern Ukraine. It is believed that Belarus have stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons that could be useful to Moscow, while Lukashenko needs help with his country’s struggling economy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that although Belarus is Russia’s “No. 1 ally”, suggestions that Moscow wants to pressure Minsk into joining what she calls her “Special Military Operation” were “stupid and baseless fabrications.”
Serhiy Nayev, commander of the Ukrainian Joint Forces, said he believed the talks would focus on “further aggression against Ukraine and the wider involvement of the Belarusian armed forces in the operation against Ukraine, in particular, in our opinion, also on the ground”.
Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, told The Economist last week that Russia was preparing 200,000 fresh troops for a major offensive that could come from the east, south or even Belarus as early as January, but more likely in spring.
Russian forces used Belarus as a launching pad for their aborted attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in February, and there has been Russian and Belarusian military activity there for months. Three Russian fighter jets and an airborne early warning and control aircraft were deployed to Belarus last week.
