Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko on Monday reached an “agreement” – but probably more like a “we have no other fucking choice but to help because we’re even more of a pariah state than Russia” – with his boss Vladimir Putin “to deploy a joint regional group of troops,” which, along with his accusations that Ukraine is planning an attack on Belarus appears to signal that he’s committing his military to joining Russia’s faltering war effort against their democratic neighbor.
It’s not clear why it took this long for Belarus to actively enter the conflict, as the satellite dictatorship welcomed Russian troops to use their territory to stage their southward offensive on Kyiv, just 53 miles from the border with Belarus (We had even mistakenly reported that Belarusian troops were in the convoy of Russian troops moving south toward Kyiv via Pripyat when the attack began back in February). Whatever the case is, it would seem that this is Lukashenko’s real birthday gift to Vlad, who was probably less than impressed with the tractor.