MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/. The defense of the Belarusian border has been developed by Minsk and Moscow and the plan may be changed to offensive if necessary, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview for the News of the Week program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"It will be easier for us there. Defense lines have been built there from Brest, Grodno and higher. The Lithuanian and Polish borders have almost been locked at terms advantageous to us. <…> But I would like to set you at ease that this is not the first year that we with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin are planning the defense of the western direction. Not the first year. We have defense plans and we will turn them into offensive if necessary," he said.

The border between Belarus and Ukraine is mined "as never before" now and the Ukrainian military can only cross it with huge losses, Lukashenko noted.

"The Belarusian-Ukrainian border is mined as never before. There have been no such wars for such mining," he said. "The border [can only] be crossed with huge losses there," the president added.