French President Emmanuel Macron took the unusual step of calling Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko on May 24, which is now housing Russian nuclear weapons.

The French President warned Lukashenko against involving Belarus in Russia’s war against Ukraine during their first phone call since 2022, Swiss outlet Le Temps reported on May 24, citing sources close to Macron.

Tensions on the Ukraine-Belarus border have been rising recently. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on May 15 that he had instructed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to prepare a response plan for threats from Belarus. Zelenskiy specifically mentioned strengthening the Chernihiv-Kyiv sector.

That followed Lukashenko's statement on May 12 that he planned a limited mobilization of specific military units to “prepare for possible combat operations,” but also claimed Belarus was “committed to peace.”

Macron's call also came a day after Russia reportedly fired two Oreshnik IRCM cruise missiles at Kyiv, which have nuclear capability and can hit most European capitals. Last year, Russia moved several of these missiles to Belarus in an escalatory role. Lukashenko boasted that he has operational control over the missiles, but the Kremlin said it remains in full control of the missiles and the ability to launch them.

The call comes in the context of improved relations between Belarus and the Western allies. Lukashenko has recently been flirting with the White House and agreed to a string of political prisoner releases as the Belarus strong man goes back to his old ways of trying to play the West off against the Kremlin on which he is now entirely dependent.

"A phone call between the presidents of Belarus and France, Alexander Lukashenko and Emmanuel Macron, has taken place today at the initiative of the French side," the Belarusian foreign ministry said in a statement. Macron and Lukashenko discussed "regional issues and Belarus's relations with the EU and France in particular".

In December, Macron suggested that the Europeans should resume direct talks with Putin – a call that has been since joined by half a dozen other EU leaders. European leaders have become increasingly frustrated at being excluded from peace talks led by the US administration under Donald Trump, who said last week that the US would no longer participate in the negotiations.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted that US efforts to bring the Ukraine conflict to a halt have stalled and no talks are currently taking place.

"But we hope that will change because that war can only end with a negotiated settlement. It will not end with a military victory by one side or the other, at least from a traditional standpoint of how military victories are defined," he noted.

The secretary of state added that there appears to be no one else in the world currently capable of facilitating a settlement between Ukraine and Russia. However, he noted that "if someone else would like to handle it, they should".

The failure of the US efforts to broker a ceasefire has knocked the ball into Europe’s court and Marcon’s outreach to Lukashenko is a play to bring Lukashenko in on the EU’s side as he continues to have some leverage over Putin, at least as a possible mediator – a role Lukashenko would love to take up.

Europe is currently searching for a European leader to lead a negotiating team to talk to the Kremlin, which also appears to have given up on a US-brokered breakthrough. On May 9, Putin suggested that the Kremlin would be willing to negotiate with Europe, if a suitable interlocutor can be found.

 As part of his new dovish stance towards the Ukraine conflict, Lukashenko said that Minsk would not join the war in Ukraine and is ready to meet with President Zelenskyy.

"I am ready to meet with him anywhere - in Ukraine, in Belarus - and discuss the problems of Belarusian-Ukrainian relations," Lukashenko said. Previously, Minsk was the venue for two rounds of peace talks between president Vladimir Putin and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which produced the Minsk I and II accords under the presidency of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after a proxy war between Ukraine and Russia broke out in the Donbas in 2014.

Lukashenko’s comments were a response to the Ukrainian president's statement last week that Russia was trying to further drag Minsk into the war and was considering plans for operations in the south and north of Belarus. The accusation is not without merit after Lukashenko gave Russia permission to launch an assault on Kyiv from Belarusian territory in February 2022 at the very start of the war that ultimately ended in disaster.