At the beginning of the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi (southern Russia, on the Black Sea coast), Alexander Lukashenko said that there was “an attempt to destabilize the situation to the levels of August last year,” referring to anti-government protests after the August presidential elections, which the domestic opposition and Western countries considered falsified.
“It’s clear that our Western friends want …” Lukashenko said, clearly nervous before presenting “various documents” to his Russian colleague about an incident last Sunday involving the arrest of opposition journalist Roman Protasevich and his partner Sofia. Sapega, the Efe news agency indicated.
“So that you understand what happened. So that you understand what kind of people they are, ”he said.
The Minsk leader, who has been in power since 1994 and increasingly isolated on the international stage, also criticized the European Union for punishing the state-owned airline Belevia for closing its airspace, believing that the company was not involved in the incident with the Ryanair flight that resulted in the Athens airline. Vilnius flight.
“Why is the Belavia fleet punished? It has nothing to do with this. They took everything. There they show their true colors, ”he stressed.
In turn, Putin recalled the incident that took place in 2013, when Austria, at the request of the European Union, forced the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales to land on suspicion that a former CIA analyst, Edward Snowden, was on board and was subject to arrest. order issued by the United States.
“They made the Bolivian president land. They took the president off the plane, and nothing: silence, ”he said.
Russia justified Minsk’s actions, criticized the sanctions imposed by the European Union, and considered that Protasevich’s case after the device was redirected due to an alleged bomb threat was an internal affair of the neighboring country.
Lukashenko, widely criticized since August 2020 for accusations of rigging a presidential election that guaranteed him a sixth consecutive term, delivered a fiery speech in front of two chambers of parliament, in which he guaranteed a response to European sanctions and pledged that he acted to protect the safety of Belarusians.
In response and during a reception at his summer residence, Putin welcomed the presence of his colleague and recalled that he is “in the process of building a strengthened alliance” between Russia and Belarus, reaffirming the support of the neighboring country and ally. , also a former Soviet republic.
“We have made steady progress in this direction (…), and this work is already leading to concrete results for our citizens,” Putin added.
Lukashenko believes that Europe intends to “strangle” his country, where many high-ranking officials have already been sanctioned due to repression of critics of the regime and an unprecedented protest movement in 2020.
Today, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid called on the West to go even further and stop the “cash flow” directed to Alexander Lukashenko.
For its part, Brussels presented a project in support of Belarus, which provides for assistance to the country in the amount of US $ 3 billion (2.4 billion euros) in the event of a transition to democracy and Lukashenka’s departure from power.
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