Belarus protests: Putin ready to send Lukashenko military support

Kremlin says reinforcements will be dispatched if standoff with demonstrators escalates

Shaun Walker Central and eastern Europe correspondent
Thu 27 Aug 2020 14.42 BST

Vladimir Putin has said the Kremlin is willing to provide military or other law enforcement assistance to the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, but added that the situation does not yet require it.

In remarks that will alarm EU leaders who have called on Lukashenko to negotiate with the opposition movement rather than try to crush it, Putin said he would send backup to Lukashenko if the standoff in Belarus escalated.

“[Lukashenko] asked me to form a certain reserve of law enforcement employees, and I have done so. But we also agreed that they would not be used unless the situation gets out of control,” Putin said in an interview for Russian state television.

Putin gave no detail about the number of people involved or what kind of law enforcement agencies they came from. So far, Lukashenko has made extensive use of his own ranks of riot police as well as interior troops and certain special forces units.

Lukashenko has publicly asked Putin about the possibility of Russian military intervention in the country, painting the recent protests against his rule as part of a Nato plot to carve up Belarus.

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