Lukashenko Says Belarus Would Welcome Venezuela’s Maduro If He Steps Down

The two leaders have never discussed such as possibility, Lukashenko said in an interview with Newsmax.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during a meeting with foreign correspondents in Minsk, Belarus, on July 6, 2023. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo

Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro would be welcome in Belarus if he were ever to step down from office, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in a recent interview.

Speaking on Newsmax’s “The Record” in an interview on Dec. 13, Lukashenko was asked whether he would offer refuge to Maduro should he leave Venezuela’s presidency. Lukashenko replied that Maduro would be welcome in Minsk if he wished, though the two have never discussed such a possibility.

“Maduro has never been our enemy or opponent. If he wished to come to Belarus, our doors are always open for him,” Lukashenko told host Greta Van Susteren, according to a clip released by his press office on Dec. 15 on Telegram. “But frankly speaking, we’ve never talked about it.”

Lukashenko dismissed the idea that Maduro would flee the country.

“Maduro is not the kind of person who would abandon everything and run away,” he said.

The interview comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Caracas following a series of U.S. military operations launched in September targeting cocaine-trafficking vessels in waters off Venezuela. The Trump administration said the campaign aims to disrupt South American cartels smuggling illicit drugs into the United States.

The escalation has fueled renewed discussion in Washington about the future of Maduro’s government, which the United States sees as illegitimate and linked to corruption and narcotics trafficking. While U.S. President Donald Trump has not explicitly called for Maduro’s removal, he has signaled that ground operations in Venezuela could start “very soon.”

Maduro came to power in 2013 following the death of his predecessor, socialist Hugo Chávez, and continued to rule Venezuela in a prolonged economic collapse and repeated allegations of electoral fraud. Like many South American governments, the United States does not recognize Maduro’s victories in the 2018 and 2024 elections, and accuses him of overseeing a narco-terrorist network involving drug cartels.

Maduro has denied those accusations and asserts that the real purpose of the U.S. military actions is to force regime change and seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Lukashenko, meanwhile, has been in power since 1994. He secured a seventh five-year term in January with 87 percent of the popular vote, amid widespread accusations of election rigging. Similar allegations surrounding the 2020 election sparked nationwide protests and led to heavy international sanctions.

One major set of sanctions, imposed by the Biden administration in 2021 on Belarus’s potash fertilizer industry over what it called a fraudulent election and abuse of power, was lifted this month as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to restore diplomatic engagement with Minsk. In exchange, Lukashenko freed more than 120 political prisoners, including opposition leaders jailed after the 2020 protests.

Addressing U.S.–Venezuela tensions, Lukashenko said it has to do with the two countries’ geographic proximity, adding that he understands why Trump would not tolerate a hostile government in a country so close to his.

“I understand Trump in many ways, because Venezuela is nearby, just as Ukraine is near Russia,” Lukashenko said. “I am absolutely convinced that all issues, all the wishes of the United States of America can today be resolved in an entirely peaceful way.”

When asked about Trump’s expanded military counter-narcotics campaign, however, Lukashenko said that force alone cannot solve the problem.

“This must be fought against, but you can’t defeat drugs with missiles,” he said. “We need to look for new methods, perhaps. We need to think, not fight.”