You're reading: Lukashenko accuses Zelensky of training ‘militants’ who later transferred to Belarus

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, whom the U.S., EU and Ukraine do not recognize as legally elected, accused President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky of training the so-called “militants” who are later, according to him, transferred to the territory of Belarus.

“You saw my position on Ukraine […] I was ‘spinning’ around Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], around Poroshenko, Zelensky as best I could. I talked to him as with my son: ‘Volodia, this is necessary, that is necessary.’ He perceived all this, what happened to him? Okay, you ran after the West, you supported them. You spat on everything. But why are you training militants on the territory of Ukraine and supplying weapons to us?” Lukashenko said during his conversation with journalists on August 9.

He expressed confidence that weapons “come mainly from Ukraine” to the territory of Belarus.

“Now, of course, we have closed this border, but it’s hard to close it tightly […] Why are you doing this? These are neighbors, these are relatives. In the north of Ukraine and in the south of Belarus, they go back and forth [they move across the border]. Now I don’t ban them from doing it. How can I prohibit them? And he [Zelensky] is supplying weapons and explosives across the border,” Lukashenko said.

As reported, in early July, Lukashenko said that he had ordered the border troops to completely close the border with Ukraine.