On Tues­day, embat­tled Belarus’ pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko said that he had ordered the deploy­ment of troops on the country’s west­ern bor­der in full com­bat readiness.

In a tele­vised meet­ing, Lukashenko said the units were on full alert and ready to ful­fil their obligations.

Accord­ing to Lukashenko, Belarus had deployed armed units on its west­ern bor­ders with Poland and Lithua­nia in response to state­ments by for­eign gov­ern­ments about the sit­u­a­tion inside the country.

Lukashenko claimed Sun­day that NATO forces were 15 min­utes from Belarus’ west­ern bor­ders with Poland and Lithuania.

“NATO troops are at our gates. Lithua­nia, Latvia, Poland and … Ukraine are order­ing us to hold new elec­tions,” he told sup­port­ers at a ral­ly in the cap­i­tal city of Min­sk, accord­ing to Reuters news agency.

He warned Belaru­sians that their coun­try would “die as a state” if new polls were held, Reuters also reported.

NATO has reject­ed accu­sa­tions by embat­tled Lukashenko that it was deploy­ing forces to that country’s west­ern fron­tiers, but said it was keep­ing a close eye on events there.

“NATO does not pose a threat to Belarus and has no mil­i­tary buildup in the region,” Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Jens Stoltenberg said in a state­ment Monday.