Belarus had to strengthen the border control regime with Ukraine due to the ‘flow of weapons’, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said when making a speech at Tuesday’s international antiterrorist conference in Minsk.
“We had to completely secure the border with our brothers, even more than the border with NATO which has always seemed to be enemy number one to us,” news agency Interfax quotes Lukashenka.
According to him, such measures were taken to stop the ‘flow of weapons’ from Ukraine as nationalist groupings could use them for purposes of terrorism.
Interestingly, it was not until Lukashenka’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Sochi in the autumn of 2018 that Alyaksandr Lukashenka raised the issue of the ‘Ukrainian arms’Thesis about weapons from Ukraine and stressed the need to bar ‘bandits’ from entering Belarus.
“We have decided to strengthen the border. We see how much trouble are coming for Belarus from there, including weapons. We should close the border – not for decent people, but for bandits, for those who smuggle arms,” he said last September.
Later, State Border Committee Chairman Anatol Lapo stated that 180 weapons and over 13,000 munitions were seized at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border in 2018. In turn, Ukrainian border guards denied the statement.
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