Kiev may have launched its Kursk incursion to provoke a drastic response by Moscow, President Alexander Lukashenko believes.
Ukraine’s incursion into internationally recognized Russian territory looks like an attempt to compel Moscow to use nuclear weapons, which would irrevocably damage its image globally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said.
In an interview with Russia-1 aired on Sunday, Lukashenko warned that Kiev’s operation in Kursk Region – the largest cross-border assault by Kiev since the outbreak of the conflict – posed enormous risks to global security.
“The danger is that this kind of escalation on the part of Ukraine is an attempt to push Russia into asymmetric actions, for example, the use of nuclear weapons,” the Belarusian leader said, adding that such a move would be a PR bonanza for both Kiev and its Western backers.
“Then we would probably have hardly any allies left. There would be no sympathetic countries left at all,” he noted, explaining that this reaction would be based on the universal aversion to the fallout that could be caused by nuclear weapons.
Lukashenko also responded to statements by Ukrainian officials that the Kursk incursion was aimed at improving Kiev’s diplomatic position for possible talks with Russia.
This plan is “a classic, but it does not work in a struggle against a great empire that has not even begun to fight in earnest,” he argued, adding he was sure that the Ukrainians would eventually be expelled from Kursk Region.
According to its current nuclear doctrine, Russia can deploy its nuclear arsenal only “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said on several occasions that there is no need to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine campaign.
Moscow has warned that it may change its nuclear doctrine, but said that any changes would be in response to what it perceives as escalatory moves by NATO.