MINSK, March 1. /TASS/. Belarus thwarted the operation of 12 Ukrainian intelligence agents over the last three years, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at the national Security Council meeting Tuesday.
"We can name every one of them. We suspected it back then, but now it is obvious. It was imperative to destroy the so-called ‘Belarusian balcony’ before dealing with Russia. They would have used us for practice before starting a war with Russia," Lukashenko said, according to BelTA.
He added that "after the blitz against Belarus failed in August 2020, they started strangling us economically."
"And the Ukraine that every Belarusian loves ended up effectively as a channel for anti-Belarusian rhetoric," the president said.
Lukashenko believes that "the coup attempt [in Belarus] was staged according to the Ukrainian scenario with the active involvement of Ukrainian nationalists and cyber warfare centers located in Ukraine." The president noted that, "there are over 15 political emigrant centers and structures in Ukraine that recruit and support fugitive [oppositionists] from Belarus."
The head of state also noted that, in 2020 and 2021, Belarusian border security and law enforcement agencies unearthed four caches with weapons and ammo on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. There were anti-tank weapons, and a huge amount of explosives and ammo, Lukashenko said.
He also stated that "official Kiev supported the West in its anti-Belarusian rhetoric and joined the EU sanctions against Belarus."
Furthermore, Lukashenko pointed out that "Ukrainian air space has been closed to Belarusian aviation.”