Don't back Putin into a nuclear corner, Belarusian leader warns

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned the West not to push Vladimir Putin into a corner amid growing fears of a nuclear strike in Ukraine.

ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has a warning for the West: Do not push Russian President Vladimir Putin into a corner.

Russia has nuclear weapons for a reason and crossing Putin’s “red lines” in Ukraine would be a mistake, the strongman and close Kremlin ally said in an exclusive interview Friday.

“If you back a person or a country into the corner, there is only one way out — forward,” Lukashenko told NBC’s Keir Simmons on the sidelines of a regional summit of post-Soviet leaders in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. “That’s why don’t cross red lines, you cannot cross them.” 

Asked if his Russian counterpart was prepared to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Lukashenko struck an apocalyptic tone, but also downplayed the possibility of nuclear arms use as not necessary and suicidal.

“If there is, God forbid, an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation, Russia can, if necessary, use all kinds of weapons,” he said. “Never, never has President Putin or the Russian leadership set a goal to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-ukraine-nuclear-warning-belarus-leader-lukashenko-rcna52244

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