Why is Lukashenko pushing for an end to the Ukraine war?

Could Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko be the key to ending the Ukraine conflict? In a surprising intervention over the weekend, the long-time dictator and close Putin ally said in an interview on Russian state TV that ‘Nazis don’t exist on the territory of Ukraine’ – a key part of Putin’s stated war aims. He also called for negotiations to begin in order to end the conflict. Lukashenko claimed that ‘neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need [this conflict]’, adding that only the West wanted this war to continue.

Lukashenka has hitherto been a staunch supporter of Putin’s war, and indeed allowed Belarus to be used as a launchpad for the February 2022 invasion. But his shift to a strong pro-peace line goes strongly against the current Kremlin signalling, which is that in the wake of the Kursk incursion all peace talks are off and that escalation is now more likely than peace.