Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko said  that his country would “only” join Russia’s offensive in Ukraine if his country, which hosts Russian forces, was attacked first by Kyiv’s army.

“I’m ready to fight together with the Russians from the territory of Belarus in one case only: if so much as one soldier from (Ukraine) comes to our territory with a gun to kill my people,” Lukashenko said in a rare press conference with foreign journalists in Minsk.