The Kremlin on Thursday dismissed a Wall Street Journal report claiming that Moscow was pressuring Belarus to play a bigger role in Russia's war against Ukraine.
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The newspaper reported on Wednesday that Russia wanted to use Belarusian territory as a base to intensify attacks on Ukraine and had threatened to reduce financial support for Minsk if it refused to cooperate.
Responding to the report, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it "does not correspond to reality" and described Belarus as "our closest ally".
Belarus served as a staging ground for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, allowing Russian forces to launch their offensive from its territory. The conflict has now entered its fifth year. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said in recent months that he believes Moscow is seeking to draw Belarus further into the war.
Last Friday, Zelenskyy alleged that signal relay stations located in Belarus were being used to direct Russian drone strikes on Ukraine. He gave Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko one week to remove them, warning, "If he doesn't do it, we'll do it."
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy said the relay stations had "stopped working".
"Whether they took them down or not, honestly, I don't know for now. But we are working on this," he was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
Peskov said he had no information regarding the alleged relay stations.
Although Lukashenko has stopped short of deploying Belarusian troops to fight alongside Russian forces, he has backed President Vladimir Putin in several significant ways. These include allowing Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil.
Belarus has also hosted regular joint military exercises with Russia and permitted Russian troops to use its military bases and training facilities.
Despite Moscow's dominant position in the relationship, Russia has increasingly relied on Belarus to refine crude oil and supply petroleum products back to the Russian market. Belarus's two major refineries process Russian crude before exporting gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to Russia.
The arrangement has become more important this year as Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have disrupted domestic fuel production and contributed to shortages across parts of the country.
According to Reuters sources, rail shipments of gasoline from Belarus to Russia during the first five months of this year increased almost thirteen-fold from the same period last year, exceeding 270,000 tonnes. Diesel exports by rail also tripled to 179,000 tonnes.
Industry data reviewed by Reuters showed that gasoline shipments from Belarus by rail during the first half of June were nearly three times higher than in the first half of May.
