At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenko was preparing to flee to Poland, – journalist

Russia’s attack on Ukraine seems to have spooked the Belarusian dictator quite a bit.

At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko , considered escaping through Poland because he did not trust the Kremlin. Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz writes about this in his book Polska na wojnie (“Poland at War”), which reveals previously unknown “Polish” aspects of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Thus, Polish officials told the journalist on condition of anonymity that in the first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw was seriously concerned about the possible entry of Belarus into the war. But the Poles did not limit themselves to just concern and began to prepare a scenario for sending “anti-regime sabotage groups” to Belarus so that they would wreak havoc in the rear of the Belarusian army.

However, Lukashenko himself was so scared at that time that he even began sending requests to Warsaw through various channels asking whether he would be allowed to cross the border and fly out of the nearest Polish airport. As noted, the dictator was well aware that the Russians would not allow him to fly out of Belarusian airspace if the war went according to a bad scenario for them.

The book also tells that during the Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations in March 2022, which took place on Belarusian territory, it was Polish special forces that guaranteed the safety of the Ukrainian delegates. Polish fighters accompanied the Ukrainians in helicopters, which landed on Belarusian soil.

By coincidence, in the first days of the full-scale invasion, Polish special forces were in Brovary, where they trained their Ukrainian colleagues. But they did not evacuate immediately, but stayed for a certain time to collect intelligence data. It is alleged that a similar thing happened with British special forces.

Lukashenko at the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine

As you know, Belarus provided Russia with its territory for a ground invasion of Ukraine from the north and for air strikes. Then Lukashenko claimed that Russia allegedly protected Belarus with its invasion of Ukraine. According to the dictator, the Ukrainians were planning a simultaneous full-scale attack on the occupied part of Donbass and Belarus, and the Russians allegedly thwarted this plan.

It is noteworthy that the Belarusian army never took a direct part in the invasion of Ukraine, despite likely pressure from the Kremlin. The maximum that Lukashenko agreed to was to conduct continuous exercises of the Belarusian army with maneuvers near the Ukrainian border, so that Ukraine could not transfer its units covering the Belarusian border to the front.

(C)UNIAN 2023