Belarus needs guarantees that Russia will defend it “as its own territory” in the event of an external attack, Belarusian President Oleksandr Lukashenko said on Monday, citing the BelTA news agency, Reuters reports.

Lukashenko stated this during a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Minsk.

Belarus, Russia’s main ally in the military campaign against Ukraine, is hosting a group of Russian troops numbering about 9,000 soldiers, 170 tanks, 200 armored vehicles and about 100 artillery pieces.

However, Kyiv believes that it is currently unlikely that Russia will again use Belarus as a staging ground, as it did at the beginning of the invasion, which began in February 2022, when Russian troops were brought into Belarus under the pretext of conducting military exercises and attacked the northern part of Ukraine.

On February 24 last year, Russia launched an unprovoked and unjustified aggression against neighboring Ukraine. Moscow constantly declares that it is conducting a “special military operation to de-Nazify” the neighboring country and protect the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.

Kyiv announced that before discussing a possible peace plan with Moscow, Russian troops must leave the entire territory of Ukraine, including the regions annexed last year and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. (Agerpres)

___

Follow the latest events of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HotNews.ro