How much time has he got left? Putin’s clock is ticking for Lukashenko in Belarus.

The daring invasion of Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod Oblasts by Ukraine has put pressure on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. After all, the Kremlin puppet has been cooperating with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special military operation from the start. Is he next?

The the chickens have come home to roast, Belarusian style.

According to Lukashenko, the only mistake Russia and Belarus made in 2014 and 2015 was not resolving the Ukrainian issue when “Ukraine had no army and was not prepared.”

Before Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Lukashenko gave Putin permission to station personnel and equipment within Belarus’ borders. Minsk also allowed Russia to launch ground and air strikes to capture Kiev — and then allowed Russian ballistic missiles to be fired from Belarusian territory.

Putin’s wounded soldiers were evacuated to hospitals in Belarus. Russian equipment damaged in the fighting was repaired there, and the Belarusian army delivered T-72 tanks to the Russian invaders. Belarus was as much a part of the invasion as possible without actually sending troops.

That was then, and this is now. As Ukrainians seize land and threaten to encircle entire Russian units in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod oblasts, Lukashenko may not feel as confident as he once did about the war’s ultimate outcome.

He is now looking for an exit. Last week, he urged Russia and Ukraine to negotiate a settlement to prevent the war from spilling over into Belarus, absurdly claiming that “Ukraine has been denazified,” implying that the operation’s oft-stated goal of exterminating imaginary Ukrainian Nazis had already been achieved.

Lukashenko continues to blame the West for the war, stating that “neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need (this conflict).” He went on to proclaim that “Ukrainians will eventually get into trouble.” together with Belarusians and Russiansbecause they will quickly understand that the West simply used them and then screwed them.” That is not likely.

Trying to show his bravado, Lukashenko claimed that Ukrainian drones had entered Belarusian airspace on August 9. He described the incident as a provocation and noted that the drones were intercepted by his country’s air defenses.

Lukashenko says he has sent nearly a third of his army to the border with Ukraine. He clearly fears Kiev, claiming that Ukraine has “more than 120,000 military troops” on the Belarusian border. He brazenly declared that Minsk would not allow Ukrainian troops to “trample on our land.”

But not so fast. Lukashenko may not be able to make good on his words. According to a source within the Belarusian Defense Ministry, Belarus may once again withdraw military equipment from its active units — tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery — and transfer it to Moscow to support critical shortages that Ukraine imposes on Russians.

The Russian military has been reduced to pulling Korean War-era T-55 tanks out of storage to provide armor, indirect fire support via its 100-millimeter main gun, and deploying 18-year-old conscripts into battle. As a result, Belarus is becoming militarily weaker with each passing day that Putin’s war continues.

If Putin’s regime collapses, Lukashenka will collapse, and he knows it. Minsk’s version of “Baghdad Bob” has suddenly realized that it is in his best interest to bring this issue to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible.

Poland is peering over his shoulder, with a $10 billion deal with Boeing for 96 Apache attack helicopters. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the legitimately elected president of Belarus and opposition leader now living in exile in Lithuania, is also living rent-free in his head.

Lukashenko is playing all the cards he has in his hand, probably Putin’s too. The mobilization and deployment of the Belarusian army on the border is probably a demonstration to force Ukraine to move troops out of Kursk and Belgorod oblasts — and thus relieve the pressure on the beleaguered Russian defenders and their supply lines.

There may also be an alternative motive: self-preservation. According to Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to Tsikhanouskaya, there is a “partisan” movement of opponents of the Belarusian regime that has deployed its people throughout the country to thwart the deployment of Russian military forces in Belarus in preparation for an invasion of Ukraine.

Further complicating matters, Viacorka says “we have seen growing pressure from commanders of military units not to intervene in the fighting in Ukraine.”

The withdrawal of regular army troops from Minsk also reduces the chance of a military coup against Lukashenko. Divisions within the ranks pose an immediate threat to him. Senior Belarusian military officials have resigned and hundreds of military-age men have fled the country.

Lukashenko is not popular in his own country. Hundreds of Belarusians have taken up arms and are fighting alongside their Ukrainian brothers. Visegrád 24 recently reported a tank with the traditional white-red-white flag of Belaruslinked to protests against the Lukashenko regime, was seen in Kursk, where Belarusian volunteers are fighting shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainian troops against Russia.

Last Saturday offered insight into Lukashenko’s growing paranoia. When a Gorodishche resident asked him about his decision to run for a seventh term as president, Lukashenko replied: “You have to get used to the fact that the president will be different. I’m not saying that I’m going to leave you tomorrow, the day after or something. But everything happens in life. You have to get used to the fact that I won’t be here forever, just like all of you.”

This is not dictator talk. In a world of survive or perish, Lukashenko may well have predicted his own transition from power, which will undoubtedly include terms for his own golden parachute. Unlike his Ukrainian counterpart, flight is his most likely course of action to avoid a Benito Mussolini or Nicolae Ceausescu fate.

Putin’s useful Belarusian idiot may be regretting his purchase. His usefulness is coming to an end — and in Putin’s mafia-run state, that’s not a good thing.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Zoet served for 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Mark Thoth writes about national security and foreign policy.