Did Zelensky Threaten Lukashenko At Trump's Behest?

Something clearly happened over the past month in his talks with the US, perhaps it refusing to compromise as part of the “big deal” that they’re negotiating and instead demanding unilateral concessions, so it might have fallen upon Zelensky to threaten Lukashenko at Trump’s behest.

Zelensky claimed last week that “the construction of roads toward Ukrainian territory and the development of artillery positions are underway in the Belarusian border areas. We believe that Russia may once again attempt to drag Belarus into its war.” He added that “The nature and consequences of recent events in Venezuela should serve as a warning to the Belarusian leadership against making mistakes.” The innuendo is that Zelensky might order his special forces to capture Lukashenko.

Belarus is Russia’s mutual defense ally, but Russia is already in a de facto state of war with Ukraine, so Zelensky might calculate that capturing Lukashenko wouldn’t change anything unless Putin abandons his typical restraint by authorizing a US-like “shock and awe” campaign in response. Putin didn’t do that after Ukraine attacked Russia’s nuclear triad last summer with Western support, and not for the first time either, so Zelensky probably doesn’t expect him to respond that way if Lukashenko is captured.

The pretext would be to preemptively avert another Russian offensive from Belarus, the narrative of which he’s been crafting since earlier this year. He told foreign-based opposition media in February that “the relay stations for modern ‘shahed’ drones are new installations that have appeared on the territory of Belarus” and ominously warned that “we are now at a moment when, in my opinion, Belarusians must understand all the risks.” He also referenced Russia’s planned deployment of Oreshniks to Belarus.

Zelensky’s saber-rattling against Belarus isn’t new, however, since he first employed it in summer 2024. Ukraine built up its forces on the border, reportedly deploying around 120,000 troops according to Lukashenko at the time, thus prompting concerns about a Kursk-like invasion of Gomel. That’s Belarus’ second-largest city in the southeastern corner of the country near the Russian and Ukrainian borders. Ukraine isn’t building up its forces there yet again, however, but this scenario still remains in the cards.

The larger context of Zelensky’s threat to capture Lukashenko involves the latter’s talks with the US. They seemed to have made lots of progress as suggested by Lukashenko sharing a radically changed perception of top US ally Poland in January that’s the polar opposite of the one that he shared a year ago. It was then argued here in February that Russia warned him about the West’s next Color Revolution plot four years in advance of its planned 2030 execution date to remind him of Polish-emanating threats.

Last month, however, Lukashenko was acting suspiciously in the three ways that were listed here. Even so, his latest interview with RT saw him excoriate the US for bombing a girls’ school in Iran, explain how the war weakened it and exposed the limits of its power, and imply that Trump is a dictator. Something clearly happened over the past month in his talks with the US, perhaps it refusing to compromise as part of the “big deal” that they’re negotiating and instead demanding unilateral concessions from him.

For reasons of sensitivity given the enormous stakes involved in the US trying to get Lukashenko to “defect” from Russia, which is what their talks are suspected to be about despite him denying it, neither Trump nor any US official can threaten him and hope to retain their dialogue afterwards. It therefore arguably fell upon Zelensky to do so instead, and whether or not he makes good on his threat to capture Lukashenko, he might still try to spark another border crisis for diverting Russian forces from Donbass.