Belarusian president says foreign troops would escalate Ukraine conflict

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's closest allies, said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday that deploying any foreign forces in the Ukraine conflict would inevitably lead to an escalation.

The comments came as the U.S. said for the first time that it had seen evidence of North Korean troops in Russia and South Korean lawmakers said about 3,000 soldiers had been sent.

Lukashenko, in separate interviews with the BBC and Russian state television, also said that any use of Russian nuclear weapons now deployed in Belarus would require his personal assent.

And the president, in power since 1994, said he would run again in presidential elections in January if urged to do so.

Lukashenko dismissed the notion that North Korea had dispatched troops to be deployed alongside Russian forces in the more than 2 1/2-year-old war in Ukraine.

"Rubbish," Lukashenko told the BBC on the sidelines of the summit of the BRICS grouping of nations. "Knowing his character Putin would never try to persuade another country to involve its army in Russia’s special operation in Ukraine."

Deploying foreign troops, he said, "would be a step towards the escalation of the conflict if the armed forces of any country, even Belarus, were on the contact line."

And that would prompt Ukraine's allies to point to foreign involvement "so Nato troops would be deployed to Ukraine."

The Kremlin on Monday sidestepped a question on whether North Korean troops were going to fight in Ukraine, but said it was Moscow's sovereign right to develop ties with Pyongyang.

Lukashenko told the BBC that Putin "will never use the weapons stationed in Belarus without the Belarusian president’s consent". He said he was "completely ready" to use them - "otherwise, why have these weapons? But only if the boot of one (foreign) soldier steps into Belarus. We have no plans to attack anyone."

Nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Belarus after the end of Soviet rule, but Russian tactical missiles were again deployed by mutual agreement, starting in June 2023.

Speaking to Rossiya-1 television, Lukashenko said he was ready to seek another term in office. "If....my supporters tell me it has to be done, I will run," he said.

Lukashenko was elected to a sixth term in 2020 in an election denounced in the West as rigged. Unprecedented street protests against that outcome were crushed by a police crackdown after Putin offered Lukashenko his full support.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Alison Williams, Ron Popeski and Deepa Babington)