MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Thursday denied a Wall Street Journal report that it is pressuring Belarus to support an expansion of Russia’s war in Ukraine. WSJ reported on Wednesday that Russia wanted to use Belarus as a springboard to step up attacks on Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the report “does not correspond to reality” and that Belarus was “our closest ally”.Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday he had warned Ukraine not to try to drag his country into war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has alleged that Moscow wants to get Belarus more involved on the Russian side. “I told them bluntly: ‘Tell your president: if he thinks he can talk to us like that – and drag us into a war – then he must understand that the nature of the war would change’,” he said. Agencies
