Zelensky Issues Ultimatum to Lukashenko to Remove Russian Military Equipment Ukraine’s president has just turned Belarus’s tightrope walk into a countdown clock: Volodymyr Zelensky gave Alexander Lukashenko one week to stop helping Russia target Ukraine — or Kyiv will act itself.

Zelensky’s Line in the Sand

From Kyiv, Zelensky framed Belarus not as a bystander, but as an enabler of Russian strikes. On Belarusian border towers, he said, sit “repeaters” — equipment Russia uses “to adjust fire on the Ukrainian population.” His demand is blunt: if Lukashenko really “doesn’t want to be in the war,” he should “turn off this equipment” in the two border regions within a week — “If he doesn’t do it, we will.”

Zelensky also widened the charge sheet, calling Belarus “one of the main suppliers for the Russian army” of petroleum products and insisting Lukashenko could stop those flows if he wanted to.

Lukashenko’s Balancing Act

Lukashenko, for his part, has repeatedly claimed he wants no part in Russia’s full‑scale war. He recently called any scenario of Belarus being drawn directly into the conflict “unacceptable” and said he had raised this with Vladimir Putin.

Minsk leans on that narrative of reluctant ally: Russian forces use Belarusian territory and infrastructure, but official rhetoric insists Belarus is guarding its own security, not waging war on Ukraine.

The Clash of Narratives

Zelensky’s ultimatum directly attacks that stance. If Belarus lets Russian tech guide missiles from its soil and fuels the Russian army, Kyiv argues, then Lukashenko’s neutrality claim is fiction.

The information war runs alongside the military one. Kyiv says Russia is “pushing Belarus into war” through staged provocations, including a drone strike on a bus carrying a Belarusian children’s football team — an attack Ukraine’s General Staff flatly denies, saying no Ukrainian drones were operating there at the time.

Between Lukashenko’s denials and Zelensky’s deadline lies a stark choice: shut down Russia’s war‑fighting tools on Belarusian soil, or accept being treated as a co‑belligerent — with all the risks that implies.