Despite Russia's renewed pressure on Belarus to deepen its role in the war in Ukraine, the threat of Ukrainian retaliatory strikes and the Belarusian military's limited independent offensive capacity will likely keep Minsk from entering the conflict directly, but Belarus will remain a critical base of Russian military pressure against Ukraine and NATO's eastern flank. On June 25, during a meeting televised on a state TV channel, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told Russia's ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, that Minsk did not want to be drawn into the war against Ukraine, saying he had repeatedly discussed this with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The comments followed increased Ukrainian pressure on Belarus over relay stations that Kyiv said were helping Russia guide drone attacks against Ukraine. On June 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Lukashenko had one week to remove the equipment and warned that Ukraine would act if Belarus did not....
