MOSCOW, BRATISLAVA. After a Friday service at a remote monastery, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked again about the war in Ukraine to the sound of birds chirping.

"The key is to address the root causes of the crisis. That is essential," Putin said, insisting on the same military goals Russia set last year - the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions; recognition of Russian sovereignty over the four regions and the Crimean peninsula; and a move away from Kiev's plans to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

"Russian troops are advancing along the entire line of contact - everywhere, in all sectors," Putin added, adding that Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov had honestly assessed the situation on the front.

The alleged capture of Chasiv Yar, according to Lukashenko, opens the door to Russian control over Kramatorsk. “It is essentially the center of a special military operation,” the Belarusian president said. “The Russians will take everything back bit by bit.”

"We will take it back. It is ours," Putin responded, despite Ukraine still denying that the Russians have already captured the city.

Ready to wait

According to Lukashenko, Putin's"effort to limit human losses" is behind the slow advance of the Russian army in Ukraine because he "cares about lives." The Belarusian dictator praised the Russian for this approach.

The couple, who sat in front of reporters on a nearby bench by Lake Ladoga in Karelia, also spoke about the lack of progress in ceasefire negotiations.

"Frankly, we can wait if the Ukrainian leadership thinks that now is not the right time [to negotiate]. That's fine. We are ready to wait," said Putin, who also reiterated his claim that the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not legitimate.

“I don’t want to go into details now, but the current government in Ukraine is not based on the Ukrainian constitution,” he said. Although the president’s term has officially ended, elections cannot be held during a war, and therefore, according to the constitution, Zelenskyy remains the legitimate president.

Lukashenko, in turn, ridiculed Zelensky, assessing that the Ukrainian president's calls are just political theater, as Kiev is sabotaging progress in the negotiations.

Both presidents also turned their attention to the scandal of the Zelensky administration's failed attempt to change the status of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).

"There is no sovereignty in Ukraine," Lukashenko said, saying that both anti-corruption agencies are in fact foreign tools that have made Ukraine a vassal of the West. However, the Ukrainian parliament has pushed through an amendment to the controversial law that limited the independence of these institutions.

Analysts have labeled Belarus as part of Putin's Greater Russia initiative, a project that also includes Ukraine. Russia's treatment of Belarus amounts to a de facto occupation, reports The Telegraph.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Lukashenko initially seemed to maintain a certain distance from the Kremlin and even took steps towards improving relations with the West, but everything changed with Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. This, according to The Telegraph, sent a clear signal to Lukashenko.

The first batch of nuclear warheads

Lukashenko and Putin pretend that their relationship is equal, but in reality the Belarusian president has turned the country into a vassal state of Russia. The reason is also the suppression of anti-government protests in Belarus in 2020, with which Lukashenko was helped by the Russian president.

Since then, Lukashenko has relied on Putin's support – and vice versa.

In 2022, for example, the Belarusian president hosted Russian soldiers who were preparing for the war in Ukraine in Belarus, while in 2023, the Russian president already stated that Russia had placed the first batch of nuclear warheads in the neighboring state.

Just a year later, Lukashenko claimed that the country was hosting dozens of Russian nuclear weapons.

Lukashenko also tried to mend relations between Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin, who marched on Moscow with his mercenaries in 2023. Prigozhin died in a plane crash a few months later.

The only act of rebellion against Putin on the part of Lukashenko can be considered the refusal of the Belarusian army to participate in Ukraine, The Telegraph adds, noting that the Russian campaign on Ukrainian territory is unpopular among Belarusians.

No wasted loss

The issue of Ukrainian children also came up on Friday, which according to the Meduza portal is one of the most sensitive issues in the talks between Russia and Ukraine. Belarus has also taken in hundreds of Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces, The Telegraph points out.

Lukashenko insists that Russia has in fact rescued children abandoned in frontline areas.

"What did Russia do wrong? There is a war and children are left without guardians. And yet [Russia] is being blamed for this. Why? Let's resolve it through negotiations. Exchanges are underway," he said.

Moscow says it has carefully processed the list of 339 children provided by Kiev, but Ukraine says Russia has provided only partial information, and only about a few children. So far, only six children from the list have been returned to Ukraine.

Putin finally recalled the Soviet Union's military losses, but credited the fighters with creating today's conditions for Russian soldiers currently in action."In this sense, not a single loss was in vain."

The meeting between the two men, which at first glance appeared to be an act of friendship, in reality embodied more of a meeting between a tsar and a serf, concludes The Telegraph.

War in Ukraine