“The attack on Europe is a lie.” Case of deserters from the Ukrainian front –

Russia’s attack on NATO countries “is a lie”. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko are holding negotiations in the Kremlin on the first day of the Minsk leader’s working visit to Moscow. The heads of state are expected to meet today with members of the 21st expedition to the International Space Station – cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya. The Belarusian president himself spoke about the talks and stated that Minsk and Moscow have never discussed the issue of an alleged conquest of Europe. Journalist Pavel Zarubin, who follows the Kremlin for the official Russian media, published a video with statements from Lukashenko, who was visiting Moscow, on his Telegram channel. “They (the French, ed.) are trying to scare us, saying that Belarus will go to war and so on. This comes from the invention that Putin and I want to conquer Europe tomorrow. This is a complete lie. We never even discussed this issue,” Lukashenko said.

Meanwhile, Russia has summoned the French ambassador to Moscow after comments deemed “unacceptable” by the head of French diplomacy, Stèphane Sèjournè, who stated that Paris no longer has “interest” in discussing with Moscow. “The French ambassador was informed of the unacceptable nature of such statements, which have nothing to do with reality,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, denouncing “a conscious and deliberate action by Paris, aimed to undermine this possibility of any dialogue between the two countries”.

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On the front of the war in Ukraine, meanwhile, the Associated Press said that thousands of Russian soldiers are deserting to try to escape the front. The agency spoke to five deserting officers and one soldier. All have criminal cases against them in Russia, where they face 10 or more years in prison. Each of them is waiting for a welcome from the West that never came. Instead, all but one live in hiding. Asylum requests from Russian citizens have increased since the large-scale invasion, but few are granted protection. Western politicians are still divided on whether to view Russians in exile as potential assets or national security risks, AP reports.