Vladimir Putin did not intend to and is not going to occupy Ukraine. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko expressed this certitude in an interview to the Associated Press, BelTA informs.
"To be honest, I didn't think this conflict would last long. And Vladimir Putin called it a special military operation, he did not declare a war. Because he and the military had no goal to occupy Ukraine and bring it to its knees," said the head of state. - I will tell you more. After the first conflict, remember, after Crimea, the first clash, Lugansk, Donetsk and so on Putin was offered in front of my eyes to go as far as Transnistria, from Donetsk and take the whole south of Ukraine, cut it off from the sea, which is what they are fighting for now. Putin said: no, I can't agree to that. And he had a lot of supporters so that there would not be this escalation. He could have done it in 2015, in 2014 very easily. I was a witness to that."
"And this time he was not going to and is not going to occupy Ukraine, to bring Ukraine to its knees. One of the reasons for that is not to tear Ukraine apart at all, so that there were no Americans, Poles, Romanians, and so on in certain parts in Ukraine. He doesn't want that. He wants to see a friendly, integral Ukraine. I fully support him, this is my position as well. But it must be a country that does not create problems for its neighbors. That is the purpose of this operation," the head of state expressed his opinion.
"So to be honest, I didn't think that this operation would drag on in this way," the President stressed. - But I'm not so immersed in this problem to say whether it's going according to plan. I stress this again I feel that this operation lasts too long. But that's my point of view, based on the facts that I have at my disposal."
"But I emphasize it once again, I'm not going into details to answer the question of whether it is going according to the plan or not," said Alexander Lukashenko.













