Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko remains steadfast in his alliance with Vladimir Putin despite the bombshell release of a Kremlin planning paper this week, which allegedly revealed Moscow’s plans to conquer Belarus in the coming years. Saturday, when speaking to reporters, Lukashenko characterized the broad media coverage of the coup plot as an effort to divide the two friends. “They only wish to separate us. This is why this topic has arisen,” he was reported as saying by the state-run news agency Belta. Strangely, he appeared to acknowledge the authenticity of the 2021 takeover document, which revealed the Kremlin’s plan to assume complete control of Belarus by 2030. He ascribed the text to previous negotiations between Moscow and Minsk over integration plans to strengthen relations between the two countries. “Maybe some individuals, a faction, in the [Russian] presidential administration were advising how to go with Belarus,” he claimed, without elaborating on why Russian authorities would advise annexing Belarus. “The document is really old. Besides, virtually no one hid it, he boasted, Belarus is the only “independent, sovereign” nation standing with Russia.