BELARUS FORCES NOT MOBILISING

PRESIDENT Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said he was not planning a mobilisation of forces after his close ally Russia announced this week it was calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists for the war in Ukraine.

Lukashenko said he was commenting on rumours that he planned to announce new measures in Belarus to support Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is Belarus’s main backer and the two neighbours are part of a borderless so-called “union state”. Belarus also borders northern Ukraine and served as a staging post for

Russian troops, missiles and aircraft during its invasion of Ukraine.

“We will fight only when we have to defend our home, our land,” the state-run Belta news agency quoted Lukashenko as saying on Friday. | Reuters