Belarus’ Lukashenko says Ukraine-Russia war at stalemate, urges talks

Russia and Ukraine are locked in a stalemate on the frontlines of their war and the two sides need to sit down and negotiate an end to the conflict, Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said over the weekend.
“There are enough problems on both sides and in general the situation is now seriously stalemate: no one can do anything and substantively strengthen or advance their position,” Lukashenko said.
“They’re there head-to-head, to the death, entrenched. People are dying.”
Russian forces have kept pushing this week near the ruined Donetsk city of Avdiivka suffering heavy losses, the U.S. White House said, but the vast frontline in Ukraine has moved little in the past year despite Kyiv’s gruelling months-long offensive.
Lukashenko, who has provided his country’s territory as a launch pad for Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, said that Ukraine’s demands for Russia to quit its territory needs to be resolved at the negotiating table “so nobody dies”.