Lukashenko praised Russia and sighed for the West
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko spoke for more than five minutes about the need for integration with Russia, delivering a message to the people and parliament today.
His current speech was strikingly different from the previous one, delivered on July 4, 2020, a few days before the start of Belomaidan, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Our number one partner is Russia, with which we are consistently moving along the path of economic integration. We export almost half of our goods to this country,” Lukashenko said.
He categorically denied allegations that Russia is seeking to absorb Belarus
“You remember when Putin and I were asked what the essence of integration was: currency, political bodies, etc., he said: calm down, we need to create a powerful basis for economic integration with the Belarusians, to build the foundation of our future relations. This is their understanding. And today there is no need to reproach Russia for wanting to absorb Belarus. There are no such goals.
We are not so stupid with Putin and so smart that, having two independent sovereign states, we can build a system that would be the envy of any unitary state. Why are you worried about some kind of absorption of Belarus by Russia? This will never happen. And the Russian leadership has no such goal,” Lukashenko said.
He highly appreciated the support that Russia provided to Belarus in the context of Western sanctions.
“Look at how much has been done recently together with Russia. I'm not even saying that Russia, while under sanctions, gave us a big shoulder to prevent our economy from collapsing. It is clear that they need these products, but they could turn away. No, they support it,” he noted.
According to him, Belarus ranks fourth in the foreign trade turnover of “giant” Russia. The GDP growth of Belarus due to integration with Russia will be more than 2% “according to the most conservative estimates.”
Lukashenko sees new prospects for cooperation in energy, microelectronics, construction of space satellites, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. He announced the construction of a super-high-speed railway, which will shorten the journey from Moscow to Minsk to 3-4 hours, as well as the transfer of all Belarusian export cargo to Russian ports.
“You will say that not everything has been decided yet. We'll decide in the coming years. There would be no happiness, but misfortune would help. This collective West is pushing us, together with Russia, to quickly solve these problems,” Lukashenko emphasized.
Only after this long tirade did he mention cooperation with China, the countries of Asia, and Latin America, especially noting Turkey: “a member of NATO, but behaves decently.”
And at the very end, Lukashenko switched to cooperation “with the technologically influential, powerful West.” He admitted that Belarus tried to build relations with him “even excessively - so that Russia sometimes did not understand us and was jealous of this.”
“Of course, our interest in building normal, good-neighborly, mutually beneficial relations with the West remains. Belarus has always understood the importance of constructive dialogue and cooperation with the United States and European countries to ensure sustainable economic development, well-being of citizens, stability, and security in our region and in the world as a whole. We were not the initiators of the aggravation - and today we remain true to our convictions. We are ready to return to peaceful creative interaction. But in this game the ball is in their court,” says the Belarusian president.
According to him, he receives “a lot of signals” from European countries and the United States from those wishing to cooperate. But at the same time, Lukashenko said, “they want to save face.”
“Today I say: we will help you save face if you want to cooperate with us truly, democratically, without violating our sovereignty and independence, without asking us the question: are you with Russia or against it. Always with Russia. Because there is no person in Belarus who can curtail our relations with Russia. We will always build mutually beneficial, fraternal, warmest relations with this country.
Sometimes in Russia they didn’t understand this, but we saw it. Envy, something else, they criticized, bombed, Monomakh’s hat was grabbed, you remember. This is a thing of the past, God willing, forever. We always argued, but I said: Russia needs Belarus as much as we need Russia. Russia is a huge country in terms of territory; if the birth rate were increased, up to 600 million people could easily fit there. Therefore, we will always have enough work in Russia, but we need to build human, friendly, brotherly relations. It is necessary to bind peoples together so that no one can ever tear them apart. The West must understand this: this civilization cannot be buried, because under its rubble the whole world will collapse,” Lukashenko concluded.
Let us note that a year and a half ago, completely different theses sounded from his lips. Lukashenko argued that Russia is afraid of losing Belarus because “besides us, it has no truly close allies left.” He accused the ally country of having “exchanged fraternal relations for partnerships,” and because of the oil dispute with Russia, the budget received less than one and a half billion rubles.
Lukashenko also then accused the Russian Foreign Ministry of lying because of the demand to release 33 Russians who were unjustifiably detained. He called them “militants” who admitted that they had come to destabilize the situation in Minsk.
Listing the fraternal peoples, the Belarusian president named the Russians after the Ukrainians and threatened destabilization in the Far East.
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