Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says that West planning to attack Russia

Minsk: Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, said on Tuesday that the West was getting ready to attack Russia through Belarus.

Lukashenko told military graduates and officers that he and Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, talked about the alleged plot by the West on Monday.

Lukashenko said, “Strategic plans for an attack against Russia are being developed,” He said that the West would try to attack Russia “through Ukraine and through Belarus”

He seemed to be talking about the invasions of Russia by Napoleon’s troops in 1812 and by Nazi Germany in 1941 when he said, “History is repeating itself.”

Belarus, which is the Kremlin’s main ally, has been used by the Russian army as a staging area for its attack on Ukraine.

The countries of the West have never said in public that they plan to attack Russia.

But Lukashenko pointed to NATO’s continued growth and said that the “newly-minted crusaders” were “forming an armoured fist” to attack Russia.

“The events unfolding today around Belarus and Russia call for our utmost vigilance and concentration,” Lukashenko said.

He said that the West was pushing the world toward “major war” and that the army should “keep its powder dry”

On Tuesday, Maria Zakharova, who works for the Russian foreign ministry, said something similar.

She said that the U.S. and its allies caused the crisis in Ukraine and were risking “an open military confrontation with our country”

In a statement, she said, “Obviously, such a collision would carry a risk of nuclear escalation,”