Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, departs from the Kremlin’s talking points, saying the ‘war’ has ‘dragged on.’

Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the authoritarian chief of Belarus and near ally of President Vladimir V. Putin, explained in an interview printed on Thursday that Russia’s invasion had “dragged on” and named for an end to the “war,” utilizing a term that the Kremlin has assiduously avoided.

Mr. Lukashenko designed the remarks in an interview with The Related Press. In excess of just about 90 minutes, he ongoing to protect the invasion, expressing the Ukrainian governing administration was “provoking Russia” and that no a person had “closer, a lot more open up or friendlier relations” with Mr. Putin than himself.

But his use of the term “war” was itself a departure from the Kremlin’s chatting points — its officials use the phrase “special military services operation,” and in March, Mr. Putin signed a law generating it a possible criminal offense in Russia to basically contact the war a “war” on social media or in a information report or broadcast. Mr. Lukashenko also declined to repeat Mr. Putin’s assertion that the campaign was on plan.

“I am not immersed in this dilemma adequate to say no matter if it goes according to system, like the Russians say, or like I sense it,” he explained to The A.P. in Minsk, the money. “I want to anxiety a person a lot more time: I come to feel like this procedure has dragged on.”

Whilst backed by a brutal protection system at home, Mr. Lukashenko has develop into almost wholly dependent on Russian help in modern decades. Soon after an implausible landslide victory in a contested presidential election, he termed on Mr. Putin for help in suppressing protests, and Russia fortified his safety forces and kept its marketplaces open to Belarus as Western relations withered.

In the job interview released Thursday, Mr. Lukashenko known as Mr. Putin his “big brother.”

Prior to Russia’s invasion, Mr. Lukashenko authorized the Kremlin to deploy thousands of troops in Belarus, alongside with tanks, artillery and warplanes. When the invasion began, those forces crossed Belarus’s border towards Ukraine’s cash, Kyiv.

But talking to The A.P., Mr. Lukashenko claimed he stood for peace and was doing the job towards a diplomatic resolution of the war.

“We categorically do not settle for any war. We have accomplished and are executing almost everything now so that there isn’t a war. Many thanks to yours actually, me that is, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have started,” he said. He included, on the other hand, that Russia “can’t by definition drop this war.”