Alexander Lukashenko, the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, has claimed that the West wanted to start a war in Donbas after the protests in Belarus in 2020.

Source: Kremlin-aligned news outlet RIA Novosti

Quote: "You were preparing for it [i.e. the West was preparing for war]. And in the near future, we will make these facts public: they [Western countries – ed.] wanted, after the 2020 rebellion in Belarus, if the situation had developed and they had reached the border with the Smolensk Oblast [Russia], NATO troops would have seized power from us, and they [the West] would have started a war with Russia from Donbas.

The pretext [for the war] would have been that Russia had seized foreign territories. And the war was to begin in 2021-2022. Russia took action preemptively."

Background: 

• When Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started, Lukashenko justified the actions of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

• In particular, Lukashenko claimed that Ukraine had been preparing to attack the joint forces of Russia and Belarus on Belarusian territory.

• Lukashenko promised to publish a map that includes a plan to attack four positions in Belarus, but he has still not made this data public.

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