Budanov: “We should pay tribute to Lukashenko”

Ukrainian authorities praise Lukashenko. Here we go again.

Chief of Ukrainian Defence Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov in an interview with the Divis project said that after spring 2022, Lukashenko “didn’t allow even an attempt of invasion.

Quote: “He’s dodging, and he succeeds. If he were not so cunning, we would already have a war with Belarus and the territory of Belarus, which Russia would simply use. This is to our advantage. Let’s not whitewash this person, but the fact that he didn’t allow even an attempt of invasion after the terrible events of winter and spring 2022 – it’s true. We should pay tribute to him for that.”

With this phrase the top Ukrainian official spreads a false message, as if only thanks to Lukashenko the Belarusian Armed Forces haven’t entered the war yet, presenting Lukashenko as a peacemaker and that he somehow controls the situation. The fact is that Lukashenko doesn’t control whether there will be an invasion from the territory of Belarus or not, whether the Russian Armed Forces will be in Belarus or not, etc.

Perhaps the head of the Ukrainian Intelligence simply forgot that before February 24, 2022, Lukashenko repeatedly promised that “there’ll never be an attack against Ukraine from Belarus,” his officials were saying the same a couple days before the invasion. It is Lukashenko who terrorizes relatives of Belarusian volunteers who are fighting for Ukraine’s freedom. Many of them gave their lives fighting the occupiers, whom Lukashenko supports.

Should we pay tribute to him for this?