Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently failed to persuade Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko to enter a war with Ukraine, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported. 

The fact that Putin seems to have accepted Lukashenko's theses at the meeting in Minsk without persuading the Belarusian ruler to adjust them, indirectly confirms this assessment, say the analysts. ISW experts still believe that Belarus' participation in Russia's war against Ukraine is unlikely.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov previously denied that Putin intended to discuss Belarus' involvement in the war with Lukashenko. The Kremlin regarded such statements as groundless. A few days before the war, Peskov acted in a similar way, categorically denying Putin's intention to invade Ukraine, but the current words of the Russian presidential press secretary are most likely an attempt to hide Putin's desperate desire to involve Lukashenko in the war and the obvious - new - failure to do so, analysts state.