Vladimir Putin again failed to pressure Oleksandr Lukashenka to direct his troops against Ukraine. But if Putin dares to attack Ukraine from there, Lukashenko will not be able to stop him.

During a meeting in Minsk, dictators Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko agreed to hold “joint maneuvers” in the first half of February 2023. This may indicate the preparation of a new attack on Kyiv.

Publicist and political scientist Andriy Piontkovskyi told about this on the Freedom TV channel, talking about what to expect after the meeting of the leaders of these two countries.

The expert believes that Putin once again failed to pressure Lukashenka to direct his troops against Ukraine. However, some agreements were still reached.

“At the meeting in Minsk, as usual, Putin did not pressure him. He did not make him promise to send Belarusian troops against Ukraine and to join Russia’s plan to march on Kyiv. But he squeezed two concessions from him. First, they announced the beginning of joint Russian “Belarusian maneuvers in the first half of February 2023. You remember how their joint maneuvers ended in the first half of January 2002,” Piontkovsky says.

He believes that the territory of Belarus is occupied, and if Putin dares to attack Ukraine from there, Lukashenko will not be able to prevent him. But the Belarusian dictator will still not send his troops because of the fear that they will deploy their weapons against him.

Piontkovsky also noted that Putin allegedly handed over nuclear weapons to Belarus in order to shift the blame for it from himself to Belarus in the event of its use.

“Secondly, and even more exotic, he forced Lukashenka to publicly thank Putin for the fact that now Belarusian pilots will sit behind the wheel of some former Soviet aircraft with nuclear weapons on board. They were afraid to say the word “nuclear”, calling it “special munitions”. – says Piontkovsky.

He reminded that in this way Putin is returning to nuclear blackmail, only this time he will be disguised as a “monkey with a grenade” in the form of the leader of Belarus Lukashenka. According to the expert, with this scenario, Russia is repeating the year 2014, when the MH17 passenger plane was shot down from its Buk.

“I already talked about the fact that Putin was told that he would be killed if he used nuclear weapons, and he shut up with nuclear blackmail. But with this statement, he is trying to engage in nuclear blackmail again. But look in some perverse way – to scare with – behind Lukashenka’s back, that is, he is making some kind of point: they say, I gave nuclear weapons to Lukashenka, so if a nuclear missile falls on Ukraine or NATO countries, it’s not me, I’m useless, it’s a monkey with a grenade. He repeats the same situation with “Buks” in the so-called Donetsk rebels in 2014,” says Piontkovskyi.

The political scientist added that in this way Lukashenko exposed his country and its inhabitants to a possible nuclear strike in response.

“But I repeat once again – this is all in the field of blackmail, Putin will not agree to it. But this was his old opinion. It is called a “false flag operation” – expect a nuclear strike, but not from me, but from Lukashenka.” – said Piontkovsky.

Meeting between Lukashenka and Putin

As reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Minsk on December 19. This happened for the first time since 2019. The head of the Kremlin brought Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to a meeting with Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

After the meeting, Lukashenko said that the S-400 and Iskander complexes handed over by Russia were put on combat duty.

According to the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, no decisions critical for Ukraine were made at the meeting between Putin and Lukashenka. In turn, the Secretary of the National Security Council Oleksiy Danilov believes that Putin pressured Lukashenka to send Belarusian troops to war against Ukraine, but Minsk does not want that.

But the analysts of the Institute for the Study of War consider the direct participation of Belarus in the war with Ukraine unlikely. Lukashenko most likely refused Putin further integration concessions.

By the way, today, December 24, Belarusian dictator Oleksandr Lukashenko flew to Russia on a working visit. He did not see Vladimir Putin for 5 days.