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US-backed attempts by Kiev to drag Belarus into Ukraine conflict to fail — Lukashenko

Earlier on Tuesday, the Belarusian president said that an agent of the Ukrainian special services and more than 20 of his accomplices had been detained in Belarus

Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko Nikolai Petrov/BelTA/TASS

Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko

© Nikolai Petrov/BelTA/TASS

MINSK, March 7. /TASS/. Kiev is seeking to drag Belarus into the conflict in Ukraine on instructions from Washington but will not be able to do so, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday.

"If they plan to do it (and I know that they are seeking to drag us into the war on commands from the Americans), if you think that having thrown down this challenge you will drag us into the war which is already underway across the entire Europe, you are wrong," the BelTA news agency quoted him as saying.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lukashenko said that an agent of the Ukrainian special services and more than 20 of his accomplices had been detained in Belarus following an attempted act of sabotage against an A-50 long-range radar surveillance and control aircraft of the Russian aerospace forces. According to the Belarusian president, the plane did not sustain "any serious damage, but for, as they say, scratches and a hole in the hull." Belarus has asked the Russian side to take this plane in for repairs and send another such plane instead, which was done.

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Ukraine crisis United States Belarus Alexander Lukashenko

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