Foreign Minister of Belarus Accuses NATO, West to War in Ukraine

UNITED NATIONS — According to Belarus' foreign minister, the conclusion of the Cold War 30 years ago was the primary cause of the war in Ukraine.

There was no formal treaty in place at the time; rather, there was a "gentlemen's agreement" that paved the way for the West to establish its dominance, in part through the growth of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, Vladimir Makei said on Saturday before the U.N. General Assembly.

The key concept that one party cannot aim to attain its own security at the expense of other parties has effectively been violated by the West's push to expand NATO, according to him.

In their efforts to advance eastward, NATO and the West, according to Makei, "missed the legitimate security interests of both Russia and Belarus." In addition to the Alliance's attempts to expand on certain historically Eastern Slavic and nearby areas, he outlined NATO's involvement in what he called "illegal wars" in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Because of this, he asserted, "the West as a whole should entirely carry the blame for the ongoing slaughter in Ukraine."

Unsurprisingly, Makei's views coincide with those of Belarus's partner, Russia. The greatest security threat to Russia, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is NATO's enlargement to its borders. On February 24, Obama dispatched his first soldiers into Ukraine, citing growing military links between Kyiv and the West as a major justification for his move.

Alexander Lukashenko, the autocratic ruler of Belarus, has a close relationship with Putin, which dissident Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya attributes to their same philosophy.

She told The Associated Press that Lukashenko had to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine because Putin had backed him following large-scale demonstrations over the official 2020 election results that awarded Lukashenko a sixth term with 80% of the vote. Many Belarusians and foreign observers criticized the results as fraudulent, claiming Tsikhanouskaya had triumphed.

There will always be security risks to Ukraine, as well as Belarus' western border, she told the AP on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly.

But according to Makei, the issue is the West's lust for dominance.

He said on Saturday that most other nations "desire to build a polycentric or multipolar world, with no one center of authority, in which no one imposes its visions, interests, and values on others." "For the previous five centuries, the West ruled the globe. It thus thinks that it can continue with this form of history forever.

He mocked the ineffectiveness of the economic sanctions put in place against Russia by Western partners while also highlighting the harm he claims they have inflicted on other nations across the world by raising food and energy prices.

Makei offered Belarus as a means of mediating a comprehensive strategic peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in his closing comments.

"There is no other option except dialogue," he stated.