Lukashenko hits back at the West for 'barbed wire' hybrid war

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that Lithuania's closure of the border was a "crazy scam" and accused the West of fighting a hybrid war against Belarus and Russia that was ushering in a new era of barbed wire division.

Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European leaders have ostracised Putin and Lukashenko, accused them of seeking to attack NATO and of fighting a hybrid war against Europe while crushing dissent.

After a series of balloons crossed from Belarus last week, Lithuania warned on Monday it will shoot them down and that the Belarus border crossings would be shut except for travel by diplomats and by EU citizens leaving the neighbouring country.

The Baltic nation has said the balloons, which have repeatedly interrupted its air traffic, are sent by smugglers moving contraband cigarettes into the EU, but it also blames Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, for not stopping the practice.

Lithuania on Monday cast the flights as hybrid attacks, while the EU said the balloons were a "hybrid threat."

BELARUS LAMENTS 'CLOSED SKIES, BARBED WIRE'

Lukashenko called the border closure by Lithuania "a crazy scam" and said Lithuania had "come up with an absurd excuse, these balloons, petty even for a small country like Lithuania."

He said that Russia's deployment of Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missiles in Belarus was in response to an escalation from the West. It was unclear when the weapon was deployed, though the missile featured in joint Russian-Belarus military exercises last month.

Lukashenko said that Europe and the U.S. were clearly engaged in a hybrid war against Belarus and Russia but that the loser from it was Europe itself.

"This is the 21st Century: closed skies, barbed wire and a complete rejection of dissent," said Lukashenko, who in 2023 dismissed claims that he is Europe's last dictator.

Lukashenko's opponents, most of them now abroad, say he has rigged elections and has surrendered Belarus's sovereignty to Putin, whom Lukashenko refers to as his "elder brother".

Lukashenko and his supporters deny that he has rigged elections and say that the overwhelming majority of voters back him for steering Belarus through the turmoil of the years following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

He noted that Europeans were demanding Belarus apologise for the balloons and said that if Minsk was responsible then it would apologise but that Lithuania should find out who was receiving such balloons.

He dismissed as nonsense claims by Western politicians that Russia and Belarus could try to strike or even occupy Poland and the Baltic states.

"It is complete nonsense," Lukashenko said. "We don't need any Europe, Paris or London or even Lithuania or Poland, Vilnius and Warsaw. We just don't need it."

He suggested that U.S. President Donald Trump could be "putting on a performance" over relations with Russia over the Ukraine war.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge, William Maclean)