MINSK, August 17. /TASS/. Ukraine was unable to fight for Kiev when it was surrounded by Russian troops, but Russia did not storm the city because that would have killed a lot of people, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.

"We had a conversation with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in connection with this. I say, ‘In order for the war to end, naturally, the capital needs to be taken.’ He says to me: 'You know, it can be done immediately, instantly, but a huge number of people will die,'" Lukashenko said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko, which she posted to her YouTube channel.

According to the Belarusian leader, that’s why Russia conducted a precision operation.

"Then, I won't talk about the reasons, you probably know, the Russian troops that were on the outskirts of Kiev left, and it wasn’t because [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky repelled them. He effectively had no troops that could protect Kiev. And half the troops he did have were definitely not his, and they didn't want to die," Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian leader added that was the reason why Zelensky decided to hand out weapons to civilians in the city.

"There were no troops to defend Kiev from the north," Lukashenko said. "Let [Zelensky] say [thanks] to the Jews and Catholics, most likely they guaranteed that if Putin didn’t not take Kiev, everything would be fine. <...> No one there was defending Kiev.".