MINSK, August 17. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had not warned him about the onset of the special military operation but did ask to "cover him if something happens."

"We never had a conversation right on the eve of military action that a war would start, I swear to you that we did not have a conversation that Russia would do something against Ukraine," Lukashenko said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko published on her YouTube channel.

According to the Belarusian leader, a couple of days before launching the special military operation, the Russian president asked "to cover him if something happens." "Most likely, he was wary of a stab in the back from the West," Lukashenko explained.

Panchenko is a Ukrainian reporter and a former employee of the shut-down NewsOne TV channel who was accused by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of "pro-Russian pieces and enemy propaganda." In January, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky imposed sanctions on Panchenko which involve, among others, freezing bank accounts, ceasing cultural exchanges and cooperation, blocking entry to Ukraine and withdrawing Ukrainian state awards.