Alexander Lukashenko has travelled to Russia on a working visit, according to the Telegram channel ‘Pool of the First’, which is close to his administration.
According to the report, Lukashenko is due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin today.
“Pool Pervogo” writes that they are expected to discuss key issues on the agenda for Belarusian-Russian cooperation, as well as the situation in the region and around the world.
Russian media are also reporting on the planned meeting between Lukashenko and Putin.
On 24 June, The Wall Street Journal, citing former and current Russian and European officials, reported that Moscow had launched a campaign to put pressure on Belarus in order to use it as a springboard to expand Russia’s war in Ukraine or to launch hybrid operations against NATO countries.
According to the WSJ, the Kremlin has been putting pressure on Lukashenko since early 2026 to expand Minsk’s role in Russia’s military operations, as Moscow seeks new ways to increase pressure on Ukraine. In particular, the newspaper reports that Moscow is interested in using Belarusian territory to launch drones at Ukrainian targets, creating additional security threats on Ukraine’s northern border, and forcing Kyiv to redeploy military resources away from the active combat zones in the east of the country.
Commenting on the WSJ report, the Kremlin stated that it was untrue.
On 19 June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that equipment had been installed in Belarus on the border with Ukraine, which the Russian military was using to direct attacks on Ukraine, and called on Lukashenko to remove this equipment within a week. According to the president, specialised equipment has been installed along the Ukrainian border on Belarusian territory, which helps Russian forces to direct drone strikes. Intelligence sources are aware of four such repeaters in the Gomel and Brest regions.
The Belarusian side did not comment directly on this statement, but the Telegram channel ‘Pool Pervogo’ published the following statement by Lukashenko:
“If anyone is provoking us and trying, as some say, to drag us into a war, I think it will end badly for those who are trying to do so. We are keeping our cool.”
Kyiv later reported that these repeaters had indeed ceased operations on 22 June.