In a potential move towards formally joining the war in Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday that he has order troops to join Russian forces in a deployment near the border of Ukraine.

In a press conference from Minsk on Monday, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced that he would be sending troops to the northern border of Ukraine in a joint deployment with the Russian military following a meeting with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg over the weekend.

“We agreed to deploy a regional group of forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus,” Lukashenko said in comments reported by state news agency Belta.

The decision is believed to have been prompted by the attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge that connects the Russian mainland and the Crimean peninsula, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed was a terrorist attack orchestrated by the Ukrainian government.

Lukashenko said that the move to deploy Belarussian troops came in response to intelligence indicating that a similar attack is being planned against targets within his country, however, he did not provide evidence for this claim.

“Strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine today, but are also being planned,” Lukashenko said. “Their owners are pushing them to start a war against Belarus to drag us there.”

The dictator, who has been in control of the former Soviet state since 1994, went on to warn against any potential attacks, saying: “My answer was simple: ‘Tell the president of Ukraine and the other lunatics: if they touch one metre of our territory then the Crimean Bridge will seem to them like a walk in the park’.”

Following the attack on the Kerch Bridge, Russian forces waged a bombardment of rocket attacks throughout Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday, including upon the capital city of Kyiv (Kiev). The Ukrainians claimed that 19 people died during the bombings, reporting that 80 separate rocket attacks were recorded on Monday.

While Belarus has hitherto refrained from directly joining the war in Ukraine alongside its major ally, the country was used as a staging ground for the full-scale invasion launched by Moscow in February.

A leading parliamentarian in Russia, the chairman of the Defence Committee in the Duma (Russian Parliament), Andrei Kartapolov tried to downplay the idea of the joint deployment being used in the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“As for the participation [of the joint group] in the special military operation, I think that this will not be necessary,” Kartapolov said, explaining that the reason for the Russian deployment in Belarus was to alleviate concerns over potential Western aggression against Minsk.

Lukashenko also claimed that the idea of the Belarusian army being sent to Ukraine was “being cultivated in the West,” to stir up tensions and provoke a conflict.

“I’ve instructed the Defense Ministry and the State Security Committee to work out a possible set of measures meant to control the situation and respond to it. But I am warning you one more time: we will give a decent response to any enemy. We’ve been preparing for it for decades. We will give a response if need be. God forbid, of course,” he said.

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