“We are your neighbours. Be Belarus,not Russia,” he said.
The Belarusian leader quickly shot back,denigrating the Ukrainian president as an American puppet,and charging that the Russian attack resulted from Zelensky’s failure to accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand for Ukraine to renounce its bid to join NATO.
The West responded to Belarus hosting Russian troops for the invasion by slamming it,and Russia,with new tough sanctions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has used social media to provide direct updates on the Russian invasion of his country.Credit:Twitter
Lukashenko ominously warned Sunday that more sanctions from the West were “pushing the world to the brink of World War III.”
The Belarusian leader,who said previously that his country could host Russian nuclear weapons,said that he warned French President Emmanuel Macron in a call on Saturday that he was ready to make the move if the US and its allies deploy nuclear weapons to NATO members Poland and Lithuania,which border Belarus.
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“We have developed plans to protect Belarus and agreed with Putin to deploy such weapons here that will make Poles and Lithuanians lose any desire to go to war,” he said.
The constitutional amendments bring back limits on presidential terms that were abolished during Lukashenko’s tenure,allowing a president only two five-year terms in office. However,the restriction would only take effect once a “newly elected president” assumes office,which gives Lukashenko an opportunity to run for two more terms after his current one expires in 2025.
A woman votes in the Belarus referendum in Gomel on Sunday.Credit:Sergei Kholodilin/BelTA via AP
“This pseudo referendum is being held under the Russian gun barrels and under effective control of the Russian military,which has come to stay in Belarus for a long time,” Belarus’ first post-Soviet leader,Stanislav Sushkevich,told Associated Press.
“The absurdity that is going on now directly contradicts the existing main law that envisages Belarus’ neutral status.”
Shushkevich warned that “Lukashenko is depriving Belarus of its future and turning the country into a staging ground for Putin’s mad games,” adding that “the Belarusian leader has no choice,he also is a pariah.”
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In 2020,Lukashenko relied on Moscow’s support to survivethe largest and the most sustained wave of mass protests in the history of Belarus. Demonstrations,the biggest of which drew up to 200,000 people,were triggered by him winning a sixth term in office in a presidential election in August 2020 that the opposition and the West denounced as rigged.
Protesters demanding a new election and Lukashenko’s dismissal faced a brutal crackdown from the authorities,with more than 35,000 arrested and thousands brutally beaten. Key opposition figures,including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya,Lukashenko’s main contender in the election,left the country amid the clampdown,along with thousands of ordinary Belarusians.
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The opposition denounced the vote as “farce”,refusing to recognise its results.
“The Belarusians are again being offered a choice between Lukashenko and Lukashenko,” Tsikhanouskaya told the AP. “Belarusians want change,but harsh large-scale repressions forced many to remain silent.”
She said that Belarusians widely opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Belarusians’ hearts hurt as it’s not just the fate of Ukraine but also our fate that is decided now,” Tsilhanouskaya told Associated Press. “We realise that Belarus’ independence is closely connected with Ukraine’s independence.”
AP,Reuters
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