The task was to make Lukashenka call Zelensky - Shevchenko

A member of the Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, Yevheniy Shevchenko commented on the statement of the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kyrylo Budanov, about his contacts during the war with the regime of Aliaksandr Lukashenka. Budanov made it clear that at the beginning of the Russian aggression, all possible channels were used to communicate with Lukashenka, and MP Shevchenko was among them.

Yevheniy Shevchenko recalls how he took part in organizing a telephone conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Aliaksandr Lukashenka "in the first days of the war." And it made it possible to organize the first talks between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations.

"The Russians sent their delegation to Belarus near Homel. Zelensky said that he would not send people to negotiate in a country from which missiles were flying and troops were coming in," says the MP. "The Russian delegation was on its way out, and at that moment Budanov and I joined in. I already understood President Zelensky's psychology - that he would not call Lukashenka because Ukraine had been attacked. My task was to make Lukashenka call Zelensky and give guarantees of the safety of our group, that nothing would happen to them. Only then they went there."

Yevheniy Shevchenko notes that those first negotiations, which took place in Belarus, allowed Ukraine to gain the time it needed to organize the country's defense. Even before the Russian aggression started, Shevchenko created an image of himself as a Lukashenka supporter, coming to Belarus and meeting with him. The Ukrainian MP was actively used by propaganda. Now he says that he cooperated and continues to cooperate with the Ukrainian military intelligence.

"He is effective in this process," says Kyrylo Budanov. "Shevchenko has been helping us for quite a long time, let's call it this way. And he has never refused when we requestsed to him."