War `has dragged on', says Putin ally

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko — Russia's staunch ally — said he did not expect the war in Ukraine to “drag on this way.”

Lukashenko told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was doing “everything” he could to stop the 10-week-long conflict and that his own military's sudden drills this week posed no threat to other countries.

“I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on,” he said in an interview in Minsk, accusing Kyiv and the United States of fuelling the war.

The Belarusian leader, whose support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's war has made him a target of more Western sanctions, allowed Russian troops to assemble for joint military drills in the Eastern European country in February, with Belarus serving as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine.

He cast himself as pivotal to talks between Moscow and Kyiv, which have yet to yield an agreement as fighting rages in eastern Ukraine.

“We have done and are doing everything now so that there isn't a war,” Lukashenko told the AP. “Thanks to yours truly, me that is, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have begun.”

Lukashenko, an ally of Putin, described the use of nuclear weapons as “unacceptable” but added that he could not answer as to whether the Kremlin has such plans.

“Not only is the use of nuclear weapons unacceptable because it's right next to us — we are not across the ocean like the United States. It is also unacceptable because it might knock our terrestrial ball flying off the orbit to who knows where,” the AP report quoted him as saying.

“Whether Russia is capable of that — is a question you need to ask the Russian leadership.”

He also called Putin his “big brother” and said the Russian president doesn't have “closer, more open or friendlier relations with any of the world leaders other than the president of Belarus,” according to the AP.

The latest drills in Belarus appear routine, according to Britain's defence ministry, which said Thursday that it did not anticipate a threat, after Belarus announced that it was testing the military's response to crises and counter threats.

Washington also said earlier that it saw no signs of Belarus intending to get involved directly in Ukraine.

Lukashenko has said he does not plan to send his troops across the border into Ukraine to fight alongside Moscow's forces.

Some Belarusians who oppose his 28-year rule have joined the battle against Russian troops in Ukraine.