“It seems to me they are trying to pit the Russians against the Chinese. The Russians must not allow that,” Lukashenko said, according to a statement posted by his office.

He also said that any deal to end the Ukraine conflict could bring both positives and negatives to Belarus.

Lukashenko allowed Russia’s army to use Belarusian territory to launch its military offensive on Ukraine in February 2022.

The country has been put under heavy western sanctions – first for a crackdown against anti-government protesters following allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and since 2022 for Minsk’s support of the Kremlin’s offensive.

Lukashenko said a deal to end the fighting would “probably, in some places be to our benefit, in others, hardly”.

“If all these foreign companies return here, first American and then others, European, it will not be easy to compete in our market. But everybody needs food.”

Belarus is a major producer of fertilisers and was a key supplier to the European Union before 2020.