Putin hosts Lukashenko, says Ukraine counter-offensive has failed
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at the Kremlin prior to the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9.
PHOTO: AFP
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MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine’s counter-offensive “has failed” as he hosted Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, his close ally, for talks in St Petersburg on Sunday.
“There is no counter-offensive,” Russian news agencies quoted Mr Lukashenko as saying. Mr Putin replied: “It exists, but it has failed.”
Ukraine began its long-anticipated counter-offensive in June but has so far made only small gains against well-entrenched Russian forces that control more than a sixth of its territory after nearly 17 months of war.
United States General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian drive was “far from a failure” but would be long, hard and bloody.
A Telegram messaging channel linked to Mr Lukashenko quoted him as saying in a jocular tone that fighters of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who are now training Belarus’ army are keen to push across the border into Nato member Poland.
“The Wagner guys have started to stress us. They want to go west. ‘Let’s go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszow’,” he was quoted as saying. There was no indication that Mr Lukashenko was seriously entertaining that idea.
Poland is moving extra troops towards the border with Belarus in response to the arrival of Wagner forces, who relocated there after a short-lived mutiny in Russia in June.
Mr Putin said Moscow would use all means it had to react to any hostility towards Minsk.
While not sending his own troops to Ukraine, Mr Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to launch its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022 and has since met Mr Putin frequently.
The two countries have since held multiple joint military training exercises and, in June, Mr Lukashenko allowed his country to be used as a base for Russian nuclear weapons,
The perception that Mr Lukashenko, a pariah in the West, depends on Mr Putin for his survival had fanned fears in Kyiv that the Russian leader would pressure him to join a fresh ground offensive and open a new front in Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said Wagner Group mercenaries had started to train Belarusian special forces at a military range just a few kilometres from the border with Nato member Poland.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video welcoming his fighters to Belarus on Wednesday, telling them they would take no further part for now in the war in Ukraine but ordering them to gather strength for Wagner’s operations in Africa while they trained the Belarusian army. REUTERS
