\u200bUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that a week should be enough for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to remove equipment from his country used by Russia in its attacks on Ukraine, adding a threat of Ukrainian action if Lukashenko did not do so. Zelenskiy said signal relay stations were \u200clocated in two Belarusian regions bordering Ukraine that were used by Russian forces to help with steering during attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Reuters could not verify his claims independently.<\/p>\n
“What’s the point of saying he (Lukashenko) doesn’t want to be in the war? Let him remove this equipment, let him switch it off. I think a week will be enough for him to do that,” Zelenskiy told a news conference in Kyiv. “If \u200che doesn’t do it, we’ll do it,” he said, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy also alluded to Belarus’s oil refining industry, saying it had become a major supplier for Moscow and that Lukashenko could put a \u200cstop to it. “Today he is the main supplier, or one of the main suppliers, for the Russian army. Specifically, Lukashenko, specifically Belarus,” he said. “Can this be stopped? I\u2019m sure it\u2019s within his power. And he\u2019s the one controlling it.”<\/p>\n
Ukraine has been intensifying its attacks on the Russian oil sector as part of efforts to put pressure on Russia’s war capability after more than four years of conflict. ZELENSKIY’S WARNINGS ON BELARUS<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy has in recent months warned that Russia plans to draw Minsk more \u2060deeply into its \u200bwar in Ukraine. Russian forces used Belarusian territory to \u2060launch attacks when they first invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Belarus has long been shunned by Western countries over its human rights record, including the detention of hundreds of opponents that the opposition says are political prisoners.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko has been releasing groups of \u2060jailed opponents as part of a process of improving ties with the United States. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main Belarusian opposition leader, said Zelenskiy’s forthright comments were the best way to deal with Lukashenko, who has held power since \u200b1994.<\/p>\n
“Ukraine is showing today how dictators should be dealt with \u2014 only from a position of strength. And Ukraine has that strength,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement. “If Lukashenko truly wants \u2060peace, he must prove it through actions, not words. He must stop all support for Russian aggression, end Belarus\u2019s involvement in the war, and stop serving as an instrument of the Kremlin. He must release political prisoners and start genuine dialogue with Belarusian people.”<\/p>\n
Tsikhanouskaya has \u2060lived \u200bin exile since losing to Lukashenko in a 2020 presidential election that opponents and Western countries say was rigged. Thousands of protesters were detained after the poll. Last month, Lukashenko dismissed any notion that Minsk would be dragged further into the war but said that, together with Russia, it would defend itself in the event of aggression.<\/p>\n
In an interview this week with Al Arabiya television, he said Ukraine \u2060had nothing to fear from Belarus and that both sides had to compromise to end the war. Russia accused Ukraine this week of a fatal drone attack on a bus carrying Belarusian children \u2060through Russia. Kyiv denied it was responsible. A woman \u2060accompanying the children was killed and eight people, including six children, were injured in the incident. Belarus’ Foreign Ministry said it had demanded “complete explanations” from Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Minsk has remained Moscow’s staunchest supporter during the war. Russian drones have crossed Belarus while attacking Ukraine, and Minsk said it has deployed the Russian \u200cOreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile system. The \u200ctwo countries also held nuclear drills in May. <\/p>\n
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that a week should be enough for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[667,32,658,52,55,51,60,657],"class_list":["post-1708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-attacks","tag-belarus","tag-equipment","tag-kyiv","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-war","tag-zelenskiy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}