June 19 (Reuters) – Ukrainian 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 \u200cLukashenko did not do so.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy said signal relay stations were located in two Belarusian regions bordering Ukraine that were used by Russian \u200cforces 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 \u200bremove 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.<\/p>\n
“If he 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 stop to it.<\/p>\n
“Today he is the main supplier, or one of the main suppliers, for the Russian army. Specifically, Lukashenko, \u200cspecifically Belarus,” he said. “Can this be stopped? I\u2019m sure \u2060it\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.<\/p>\n
ZELENSKIY’S WARNINGS ON \u2060BELARUS<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy has in recent months warned that Russia plans to draw Minsk more deeply into its war in Ukraine. Russian forces used Belarusian territory to launch attacks when they first invaded Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Belarus has long been shunned by Western countries over its human rights record, including the detention of hundreds of opponents that \u200bthe \u200bopposition says are political prisoners.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko has been releasing groups of jailed opponents as part \u200bof a process of improving ties with the United States.<\/p>\n
Sviatlana \u200cTsikhanouskaya, the main Belarusian opposition leader, said Zelenskiy’s forthright comments were the best way to deal with Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994.<\/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.<\/p>\n
“If Lukashenko truly wants peace, 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 lived in exile since losing \u200cto Lukashenko in a 2020 presidential election that opponents and Western countries say was \u200brigged. Thousands of protesters were detained after the poll.<\/p>\n
Last month, Lukashenko dismissed any notion that \u200bMinsk would be dragged further into the war but said that, \u200btogether with Russia, it would defend itself in the event of aggression.<\/p>\n
In an interview this week with Al Arabiya television, \u200che said Ukraine had nothing to fear from Belarus and \u200bthat both sides had to compromise to \u200bend the war.<\/p>\n
Russia accused Ukraine this week of a fatal drone attack on a bus carrying Belarusian children through Russia. Kyiv denied it was responsible. A woman accompanying the children was killed and eight people, including six children, were injured in the incident. Belarus’ Foreign Ministry \u200bsaid it had demanded “complete explanations” from Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Minsk has remained \u200cMoscow’s staunchest supporter during the war. Russian drones have crossed Belarus while attacking Ukraine, and Minsk said it has deployed the \u200bRussian Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile system. The two countries also held nuclear drills in May.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk; \u200bAdditional reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Ron Popeskiand Franklin Paul)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 19 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that a week should be enough for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[202,3803,3774,25,623,26,412,72],"class_list":["post-7527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alexander-lukashenko","tag-belarusian","tag-minsk","tag-russia","tag-russian-forces","tag-ukraine","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}