Alexander Lukashenko commented on the statement made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his interview with the American blogger and podcaster Lex Friedman, according to which the Belarusian leader apologized to Zelensky for the attack launched by Russia from the territory of Belarus the first days of the war.

“I spoke to Lukashenko on the phone and he apologized, he was saying ‘it wasn’t me’, missiles were launched from his territory and Putin launched them. He was saying ‘trust me, it wasn’t me, I’m not in control’. I told him he was just as much a murderer, and he said, ‘Understand, you can’t go to war with the Russians,'” Zelensky said in the interview.

The Belarusian president said, on the occasion of this statement, as reported by the Belarusian state news agency BelTA: “They need to drag us into this war as well. Why is Volodymyr Zelensky behaving like this? We were good with him, we had good relations. And my little family too. Why is he babbling, what is he missing? They give him orders. He must do everything to drag the country into war.”

Lukashenko added that “it is better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like in Ukraine.”

Earlier, Lukashenko’s spokeswoman Natalya Eismond said there was no apology.

“No apology was made by the president of Belarus to Zelensky, for the simple reason that we have nothing to apologize for,” Eismond said.