Something clearly happened over the past month in his talks with the US, perhaps it refusing to compromise as part of the “big deal” that they’re negotiating and instead demanding unilateral concessions, so it might have fallen upon Zelensky to threaten Lukashenko at Trump’s behest.
Andrew Korybko
Zelensky claimed
last week that “the construction of roads toward Ukrainian territory
and the development of artillery positions are underway in the
Belarusian border areas. We believe that Russia may once again attempt
to drag Belarus into its war.” He added that “The nature and
consequences of recent events in Venezuela
should serve as a warning to the Belarusian leadership against making
mistakes.” The innuendo is that Zelensky might order his special forces
to capture Lukashenko.
Belarus is Russia’s mutual
defense ally, but Russia is already in a de facto state of war with
Ukraine, so Zelensky might calculate that capturing Lukashenko wouldn’t
change anything unless Putin abandons his typical restraint by
authorizing a US-like “shock and awe” campaign in response. Putin didn’t
do that after Ukraine attacked Russia’s nuclear triad last summer with Western support, and not for the first time either, so Zelensky probably doesn’t expect him to respond that way if Lukashenko is captured.
The
pretext would be to preemptively avert another Russian offensive from
Belarus, the narrative of which he’s been crafting since earlier this
year. He told
foreign-based opposition media in February that “the relay stations for
modern ‘shahed’ drones are new installations that have appeared on the
territory of Belarus” and ominously warned that “we are now at a moment
when, in my opinion, Belarusians must understand all the risks.” He also
referenced Russia’s planned deployment of Oreshniks to Belarus.
Zelensky’s saber-rattling against Belarus isn’t new, however, since he first employed it in summer 2024. Ukraine built up its forces on the border, reportedly deploying around 120,000 troops according to Lukashenko at the time, thus prompting concerns about a Kursk-like invasion of Gomel.
That’s Belarus’ second-largest city in the southeastern corner of the
country near the Russian and Ukrainian borders. Ukraine isn’t building
up its forces there yet again, however, but this scenario still remains
in the cards.
The larger context of Zelensky’s threat
to capture Lukashenko involves the latter’s talks with the US. They
seemed to have made lots of progress as suggested by Lukashenko sharing a
radically changed perception of top US ally Poland in January that’s the polar opposite of the one that he shared a year ago. It was then argued here
in February that Russia warned him about the West’s next Color
Revolution plot four years in advance of its planned 2030 execution date
to remind him of Polish-emanating threats.
Last month, however, Lukashenko was acting suspiciously in the three ways that were listed here. Even so, his latest interview with RT saw him excoriate the US for bombing a girls’ school in Iran, explain how the war weakened it and exposed the limits of its power, and imply that Trump is a dictator. Something clearly happened over the past month in his talks with the US, perhaps it refusing to compromise as part of the “big deal” that they’re negotiating and instead demanding unilateral concessions from him.
For
reasons of sensitivity given the enormous stakes involved in the US
trying to get Lukashenko to “defect” from Russia, which is what their
talks are suspected to be about despite him denying
it, neither Trump nor any US official can threaten him and hope to
retain their dialogue afterwards. It therefore arguably fell upon
Zelensky to do so instead, and whether or not he makes good on his
threat to capture Lukashenko, he might still try to spark another border
crisis for diverting Russian forces from Donbass.