MINSK, August 15. /TASS/. High-ranking representatives of the US leadership want Russians and Ukrainians to die in the Ukrainian conflict, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.

"I can't cite these facts, they are absolutely closed, where they (the Westerners - TASS) openly say this - I mean, high-ranking people. Literally: ‘Let them beat each other to death - Ukrainians, Russians - let them all die’," the BelTA news agency quoted the Belarusian leader as saying in an interview for the Rossiya-1 TV channel. "This is what high-ranking officials are saying. Americans, I'm going to open up to you a little bit. Is this normal? They want us to destroy each other," he emphasized.

At the same time, Lukashenko once again urged to start negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, in the continuation of which only the West is interested. "Let's sit down at the negotiating table and end this fight. Neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need it. They (the West - TASS) need it," he said.