Will Vladimir Putin drag Belarus into Ukraine war?

Russian President Vladimir Putin with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. Pic/AFP

President Vladimir Putin said the situation in four areas of Ukraine that Moscow had declared part of Russia was "extremely difficult" and ordered security services to step up surveillance on its borders and combat new threats.

Putin told operatives they needed to significantly improve their work, in a speech that was one of his clearest public admissions yet that the invasion he launched almost 10 months ago is not going to plan. It followed a visit to close ally Belarus that fuelled fears, dismissed by the Kremlin, that the country could help Russia open a new invasion front.

On Monday, Putin visited Belarus for the first time since 2019 after Moscow's recent battlefield setbacks, fuelling Ukrainian fears he would pressure Minsk to open a new invasion front. Putin and his Belarusian counterpart, President Alexander Lukashenko, extolled the benefits of cooperation, but they hardly mentioned the Ukraine war at their joint news conference. Both Moscow and Minsk denied that they wanted an active Belarusian role in Ukraine.

Also Read: Putin acknowledges Russia's war in Ukraine could be a long one

The United States accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of "apparently yielding to Russian threats" and not sending officials to Ukraine to inspect drones used by Russia that Washington and others say were supplied by Iran.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked Western leaders meeting in Latvia to supply a wide range of weapons systems, renewing his longstanding call for more military support. The International Monetary Fund said on Monday it had approved a four-month programme for Ukraine aimed at maintaining economic stability.

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