Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country must be involved in negotiations to resolve the war in Ukraine and that he expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days.

“There can be no separate agreements behind Belarus’s back,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the Belarusian state news agency Belta on Thursday.

“Since you dragged us into this – principally Western countries – the position of Belarus naturally needs to be heard at these negotiations.”