Ebun Olowu
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has warned that he stands ready to send police to Belarus if protests there turn violent.
Speaking in an interview broadcast on Thursday, Putin said currently there was no such need and voiced hope for stabilising the situation in the neighbouring country.
Belarus’s president for 26 years, Alexander Lukashenko, is facing weeks of protests against his re-election for a sixth term in the August 9 vote, which the opposition says was rigged.
Putin told Russia’s state television that Lukashenko has asked him to prepare a Russian law enforcement contingent to deploy to Belarus if necessary.
Putin said he and Lukashenko have agreed that “there is no such need now, and I hope there won’t be”.
“We have agreed not to use it until the situation starts spinning out of control and extremist elements acting under the cover of political slogans cross certain borders and engage in banditry and start burning cars, houses and banks or take over administrative buildings,” he said.
In an apparent jab at the West, which has condemned Lukashenko’s crackdown on protesters and urged him to launch a dialogue with the opposition, Putin accused unidentified foreign forces of trying to win political advantages from the turmoil in Belarus.
“They want to influence those processes and reach certain decisions, which they think conform with their political interests,” Putin said.
