Putin 'in Better Shape Than Ever', Belarusian Leader Says

March 19 – Russian President Vladimir Putin is healthy, sane and “in better shape than ever,” his close ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Japan’s TBS television channel.

“We met with him not only as heads of state, we are on friendly terms,” Lukashenka said in an interview recording published by the state news agency BelTA. “I am absolutely privy to every detail of it, to the best of my ability, both public and private.”

Russia used the territory of Belarus as a springboard for the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.

Western leaders have suggested that Putin made a costly miscalculation by launching a military offensive into Ukraine, where Russian troops have suffered heavy losses and their advance has largely stalled despite their apparent superiority. More

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suggested that Putin is behaving “irrationally”, while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called him “completely paranoid”.

But Lukashenko dismissed the notion that Putin, 69, was not at the peak of his powers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia, March 18, 2022. RIA Novosti Photo Agency/Alexander Wilf via REUTERS/File Photo

“The West and you must get this nonsense, this fiction out of your head,” he told an interviewer.

“Putin is in absolute shape, he is in better shape than ever … He is a perfectly sane, healthy person, physically healthy – he is an athlete.”

“As they say here – catch a cold at all our funerals.”

Lukashenko also mourned the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Putin has often brought up the subject, not least when, in pre-invasion speeches, he suggested that Ukraine was an artificial construct and “an integral part” of Russian history and culture. .

“The collapse of the Soviet Union is a tragedy,” Lukashenka said. “If the Soviet Union had survived to this day, we could have avoided all conflicts in the world …

“As long as the USSR existed, the world was multipolar, and one pole balanced the other,” he said. “Now the reason for what is happening in the world is unipolarity – the monopolization of our planet by the United States of America.”

Written by Kevin Liffey. Editing: Helen Popper.

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