Lukashenko voiced a sensational version of Protasevich’s arrest
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko took as a compliment the accusations of the West that he had authorized a special operation, “luring” the Irish plane carrying wanted blower Roman Protasevich to Minsk airport with a fake threat of mining.
He stated this at a meeting with deputies, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I have to say: guys, you flatter us. Thank you. If this is an operation, then pay attention - it went off without a hitch. In the sense that we not only did not violate any agreements or international laws, we did not even violate a single instruction. I wouldn’t mind, if absolutely frankly,” Lukashenko said.
At the same time, he admits the opposite situation: Western intelligence services deliberately set up Protasevich for arrest in Belarus in order to be able to introduce new sanctions against this country and revive the completely stalled Belomaidan.
“Let’s answer the main questions together: who benefits from such an aggravation. After all, no sooner had the chassis of the “mined” plane touched the runway of the Minsk airport than categorical and, moreover, completely absurd accusations began to pour in from the collective West, led by Washington. Have you noticed this? Until the evening, all this poured out, while the pilot sat with us and did not want to fly for 7 hours, calling up with someone. And some decisions were made to ban flights over our territory.
We have only one question for Western politicians: did you do this impromptu, or was everything prepared in advance? A reason for a round of aggression, for economic blackmail and pressure? Or was this supposed to be a new trigger for protests in Belarus? If everything is so, and you are preparing another package of sanctions, then do not forget to compensate for the costs incurred by the Belarusian side during the investigation of the incident,” Lukashenko said.
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