Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday accused the United States of trying to drive a wedge between Russia and China."It seems to me they are trying to pit the Russians against the Chinese.
The Russians must not allow that," Lukashenko said in a statement published by his office.He added that any settlement to end the war in Ukraine would have mixed impacts on Belarus, saying apeace deal "would probably, in some places, be to our benefit, in others, hardly.""If all these foreign companies return here, first American and then others, European, it will not be easy to compete in our market.
But everybody needs food," Lukashenko said.Belarus, a major producer of fertilizers, was a key supplier to the European Union before 2020.Lukashenko allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.Belarus faces heavy Western sanctions initially over a crackdown on anti-government protests following allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and later for Minsk's support of Russia's war on Ukraine.