Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko Thursday said Russia, Ukraine and the West must agree to halt the Ukraine conflict to avoid the "abyss of nuclear war" and insisted Kyiv should accept Moscow's demands.
"We must stop, reach an agreement, end this mess, operation and war in Ukraine," Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin's top ally, told AFP in an exclusive interview in Minsk.
"Let's stop and then we will figure out how to go on living," he said during the one-hour interview at the Palace of Independence.
"There's no need to go further. Further lies the abyss of nuclear war. There's no need to go there," he said, speaking on the 148th day of Moscow's offensive in Ukraine.
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Lukashenko accused the West of seeking a conflict with Russia and of provoking the Ukraine war.
"You have fomented the war and are continuing it," he said.
"We have seen the reasons for this war," he added.
"If Russia had not got ahead of you, members of NATO, you would have organised and struck a blow against it," he said, echoing Putin.
"He just got slightly ahead of you."
Belarus has served as a staging ground for Russia's intervention in Ukraine, but Lukashenko has so far avoided becoming a party to the conflict.
'Everything depends on Ukraine'
Analysts say that he is keenly aware of the fact that most Belarusians do not support sending troops into Ukraine.
The 67-year-old leader, who has ruled Belarus for nearly three decades, insisted that Kyiv authorities can end the war if they re-start talks with Moscow and accept its demands.
"Everything depends on Ukraine," he said.
"Right now, the peculiarity of the moment is that this war can be ended on more acceptable terms for Ukraine."
He urged Kyiv authorities to "sit down at the negotiating table and agree that they will never threaten Russia".
Talks between Russia and Ukraine largely ground to a halt in mid-April.
Lukashenko said that Ukraine must accept the loss of territory occupied by Russia in eastern and southern Ukraine.
"This is no longer being discussed," he said. "One could have discussed this in February or March."
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that peace talks with Ukraine "make no sense", and announced that Moscow's military aims in the pro-Western country were no longer focused "only" on the east.
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Lukashenko has sought to promote himself as Putin's most faithful ally, welcoming Russian troops under the pretext of military exercises before Moscow launched its Ukraine offensive.
Lukashenko insisted that the war could have been avoided if Western countries had given Putin "the security guarantees" he wanted.
"On the eve of the Ukraine war why did not you provide such guarantees?" he said. "This means you wanted war.
"You, members of NATO and Americans, needed war."
Before intervening in Ukraine, Putin had demanded that NATO stop its eastward expansion and voiced grievances over Washington's military support for Ukraine.
'Not killing people'
Despite officially being a non-belligerent, the Belarus strongman has demanded that his country be included in any talks and a deal to end the conflict.
Lukashenko told AFP that he considered his country to be part of the conflict, however.
"I am part of the operation that Russia is conducting," he said. "I am supporting Russia."
He said he allowed 20,000 Russian troops from Siberia and the Far East to use Belarus as a staging ground to attack Ukraine at the start of the war.
"Because you were ready to strike Belarus and Russian infrastructure," the Belarus strongman claimed.
"Do you want to say that I had to sit and wait until rockets start falling on the heads of the Belarusian people? No!"
At the same time he insisted that not a single Belarusian soldier was fighting in Ukraine.
"I shut the western and the southwestern border near Brest," he said. "So that you, the NATO troops, primarily the Poles being pushed by the Americans, do not stab the Russians in the back. I couldn't allow it."
He insisted that the West was "even more of an aggressor than me."
"It is you who are fighting there, your mercenaries and your weapons," he added.
Belarus also took part in the conflict by treating Russia's wounded troops, Lukashenko added.
"Yes, we treated the wounded. The dead were taken to Belarus," he said.
"We were handing over and handing over now medicines to both Ukrainians and Russians. This is how we are taking part in this operation. And we are not killing people."
Lukashenko said he did not plan to recognise as independent Ukraine's separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk or Russia's annexation of Crimea.
"What is the point today?" he said.
Despite his heavy economic and military dependence on Russia, he insisted he was no "puppet".
Lukashenko said he was ready to receive a loan from France. "But you spat on us, tried to wipe your feet on us, me, and my country."
He also denounced Western economic penalties on his country and Moscow.
"The situation with your idiotic and savage sanctions just showed how dependent you are on Russian energy resources."
