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U.S. citizens in Belarus are being warned to leave immediately, repeating long-held concerns about traveling to the close Russian ally on the northern border of Ukraine.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland are stepping up border security amid revelations the Russia’s Wagner Group have been exiled in Belarus, raising red flags about the dangers of an expanded Russian war outside of Ukraine and extending to the Baltic states, The Hill reported Monday.
The U.S. warning on Belarus was listed at Level 4, the highest of security warnings.
“Do not travel to Belarus due to the Belarusian authorities’ continued facilitation of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the buildup of Russian military forces in Belarus, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, the potential of civil unrest, the risk of detention, and the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens residing in or traveling to Belarus,” the advisory read.
“U.S. citizens in Belarus should depart immediately.”
The news comes as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko denied Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to push Belarus into joining the war in Ukraine.
“To involve Belarus… what will that give? Nothing,” said Lukashenko, one of Putin’s closest allies, whose country borders Ukraine, Russia, and three NATO countries, including Poland.
“If you Ukrainians do not cross our border, we will never participate in this war. In this hot war. But we will always help Russia – they are our allies,” he said in the interview with Diana Panchenko, a pro-Russian Ukrainian journalist.
Lukashenko also said he believed Putin had already achieved his goals in what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine and said the two sides should sit at the negotiating table and be ready to discuss all the issues, including the future of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories Moscow claims.
“Its [Russia’s] goals have already been fulfilled to date. Ukraine will never behave so aggressively towards Russia after the end of this war, as it did before the war,” Lukashenko said.
Putin said Russia had to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine last year to protect its own security and that of native Russian speakers, especially in eastern Ukraine, from what he said were “neo-Nazis” and ultra-nationalists in power in Kyiv.
Ukraine and its Western allies said this is nonsense and cast Russia’s invasion as an imperial-style land grab.
Lukashenko warned Belarus would respond to external aggression, including the use of nuclear weapons that Moscow has stationed on its territory.
“There can be only one threat – aggression against our country. If aggression against our country starts from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, we will respond instantly with everything we have,” he said.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016, starting on the first night of the Republican National Convention. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.