{"id":527307,"date":"2026-03-20T15:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T12:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=527307"},"modified":"2026-03-20T15:51:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T12:51:27","slug":"lukashenka-says-he-missed-peace-council-meeting-due-to-combat-readiness-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/lukashenka-says-he-missed-peace-council-meeting-due-to-combat-readiness-check","title":{"rendered":"Lukashenka Says He Missed Peace Council Meeting Due to Combat Readiness Check"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alyaksandr Lukashenka<\/b> said he did not attend the first meeting of the Peace Council, created by US President Donald Trump<\/b>, because of a sudden combat readiness check of the armed forces. He made the statement while commenting on yesterday\u2019s talks with US President\u2019s Special Envoy John Coale<\/b>.<\/p>\n

“They strongly insisted that I attend the next Peace Council meeting. I told them openly and honestly why I could not go. It was not only because of the schedule or other factors,”<\/i> he said, according to his press service.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that on February 11, Lukashenka\u2019s press secretary Natallia Eismant<\/b> said he would not attend the February 19 meeting of the Peace Council in Washington, citing a late invitation and a busy schedule, as well as logistical difficulties due to sanctions. A few days later, Lukashenka himself referred to logistical issues, questioning how he could travel to Washington under sanctions.<\/p>\n

He now says the main reason was the combat readiness inspection. On February 19, he instead met with parliamentarians from Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

“You saw that I put the entire army on alert. Every evening I receive reports from the group overseeing and implementing my decisions on this \u2014 truly, for the first time in history, such a large-scale inspection. How could I leave? Should I abandon this process? That is impossible. Especially since some began speculating that this was directed against Ukraine, Poland, or Lithuania. No, we are doing this for ourselves. I want to assess the condition of our army. That was the main reason why I could not fly out,”<\/i> he said.<\/p>\n

According to him, logistical obstacles could have been overcome.<\/p>\n

“There were also hostile steps planned by Europeans. But we could have bypassed them. I would have flown around Europe. Safety? I did not even think about it. Some of our opponents claimed: \u2018Lukashenka got scared!\u2019 I am not one to be afraid. I did not think about safety at all. I was not flying to friends, but to people who wanted to see me \u2014 including President Trump. So I promised that we would meet soon at one of your future events,”<\/i> he added.<\/p>\n

After the talks, Coale said the United States had been disappointed by Lukashenka\u2019s absence from the Peace Council meeting, but that Trump had invited him to take part in future sessions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alyaksandr Lukashenka said he did not attend the first meeting of the Peace Council, created by US President Donald Trump, because of a sudden combat readiness check of the armed forces. He made the statement while commenting on yesterday\u2019s talks with US President\u2019s Special Envoy John Coale. “They strongly insisted that I attend the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":513713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69bd42d58edf4.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Lukashenka Says He Missed Peace Council Meeting Due to Combat Readiness Check"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143090],"tags":[143118],"class_list":["post-527307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-belarus"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}