Belarus minister said he feared Putin would annex his country after Ukraine, Finland reveals

A Belarusian minister said he was afraid Russia would annex his country after invading Ukraine shortly before his sudden death last year, Finland has revealed.

Vladimir Makei, the former foreign minister of the country, which is closely allied with Russia, died in November at 64. No official cause of death was given.

Now Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto has told of how he spoke to Makei after Russian president Vladimir Putin illegally proclaimed that Russia had annexed four regions in Ukraine – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – on September 30. 

In an interview with the Finnish tabloid newspaper Iltalehti, published today, Haavisto said Makei, who had held his ministry position since 2012, was ‘very worried about whether Belarus would be the fifth’.

The Finnish politician said he found Makei’s concerns noteworthy because from the outside, officials in Minsk appeared to be firm supporters of Russia ‘in every way’, according to the Iltalehti report.

Vladimir Makei, former foreign minister of Belarus, which is closely allied with Russia, died in November last year at 64. No official cause of death was given. Now, his Finnish counterpart has said he expressed fears his country would be annexed by Russia

While Belarus has not directly been involved in the 12-month invasion of Ukraine, its autocratic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, allowed Moscow’s troops to use his country as a launchpad for the initial attack on February 24, 2022.

Belarus has also allowed Russia to use its land for military drills and has threatened Ukraine with a response should Belarusian territory come under attack, in what some analysts feared was the groundwork for a false flag assault to pave the way for the country to enter the conflict. 

Haavisto said when discussing Russia’s potential ambitions, sweat began dripping from Makei’s forehead, and that he said you cannot predict who would next find themselves in the sights of Putin’s imperialistic ambitions.

Last week, a group of journalists released a report that appeared to suggest Makei’s concerns were not unfounded.

The document claimed they had received leaked presidential documents that showed Russia was allegedly planning to annex Belarus and absorb it into the Russian Federation by the year 2030.

The secret dossier, reportedly dated to the summer of 2021, was called ‘Strategic Goals of the Russian Federation in Belarus’ and set out three possible approaches – short, medium and long-term – to annexing Belarus, a piece of ‘historical Russia’.

The medium-term plan would see Belarus formally become part of Russia as early as 2025, while the long-term plan gives a time frame of seven years from 2023.

The plans were reportedly drawn up by Russia’s Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation – a governmental division established by Putin in 2018 – and were obtained by Yahoo! News and German outlet Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko shows an invasion map of Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Lukashenko during a meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on February 17

If verified as authentic, the documents would confirm that Putin has ordered Russia’s intelligence services and armed forces to prepare to annex yet another country, even as his armies struggle to make significant gains in Ukraine.

But the despot’s desire to take control of Belarus as well as Ukraine would hardly come as a surprise, and would suggest Makei was right to be concerned.

Haavisto said he was in contact with Makei from the start of the war because he wanted to understand what Belarus was thinking about Russia and its invasion.

‘It is worth following, because even though Belarus’s support seems very active, there is some kind of reservation,’ he told the tabloid. 

He pointed out how Belarus had stated it supported Russia in every way while not actually joining the conflict as an interesting contradiction. 

‘It gives a double message, which is quite interesting, and at least Belarus has not yet joined the most active hostilities across the border,’ he said. 

Makei himself was the subject of a report last week, which claimed the Belarusian politician killed himself just days after he returned from a meeting with Kremlin officials in Armenia.

According the independent Belarusian media outlet Nasha Niva, which cited four unrelated sources, Makei’s friends said he was ‘painfully upset by the collapse of the course he was leading’.

Lukashenko had wanted to replace his chief diplomat, who had served for over a decade. As Lukashenko has grown increasingly close to Putin, it is understood that Makei wanted to strengthen his country’s relationship with the West.

‘Recently, he has been denied personal attention [from Lukashenko],’ a colleague of Makei’s is quoted anonymously in the report. ‘It was very perceptible to him.’

Another said that the minister understood his position was coming to an end, and that he felt increasingly ‘unnecessary’ and ‘out of place’.

The report claims Makei had said seven months before his death: ‘I don’t remember who said it, but if you are going to be executed, then it is better to be executed for loyalty than for treason.’

It added that those close to him do not believe he was murdered. 

Lukashenko attended his funeral on November 29. The dictator was seen in photographs standing over his open casket, squeezing his arm.

Moscow did not send Makei’s Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to the funeral. 

Lukashenko meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing today

The revelation from Finland’s foreign minister came as Lukashenko told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that his country ‘fully supports’ Beijing’s proposals for ending the Ukraine war when the two leaders met today.

The state visit to the Chinese capital by Lukashenko – a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin – comes after Beijing published a position paper on Moscow’s war in Ukraine, insisting it is a neutral party and calling for dialogue.

Western countries have criticised China for failing to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, while Beijing has reacted furiously to recent claims by the United States and Nato that it may be contemplating arms transfers to Russia.

The position paper was met with scepticism from Ukraine’s allies, while Russia acknowledged the proposal but said the conditions for a peaceful resolution of the conflict were not in place ‘at the moment’.