MINSK, 23 June (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia are open to dialogue, but will resist pressure, State Secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Dmitry Mezentsev said during a ceremony to open the international defense technology expo MILEX 2021 in Minsk on 23 June, BelTA has learned.
"We are open. We call on our Western partners to dialogue and oppose political and sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. This is the position of national leaders Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenko. We are for deep cooperation, sincere relations, strategic partnership, and focus on the future. It is important that our national leaders do not allow Western partners to believe that Russia and Belarus can succumb to pressure. They oppose the policy of falsification, rewriting history, belittling the feat of the Soviet soldiers and the Soviet people who saved their land and European countries from enslavement and who endured the greatest losses in the fight against fascism. To hear that the Soviet Union could have been the aggressor in 1941 means that the struggle is not over, even though it is the 21st century," Dmitry Mezentsev said.
According to him, MILEX demonstrates that Belarus' engineering and technology school has gained weight. "In many ways, the potential of the Belarusian industrial complex and the partnership presented here is a guarantee that we will continue to be an example of the alliance. We will live peacefully. Our enemies will revise the system of relations and replace pressure with evolution and movement towards an equal partnership dialogue with Russia and Belarus," Dmitry Mezentsev added.
In terms of scale and goals, participants and infrastructure, MILEX is considered one of the largest expos in the Eastern European region. Since 2001, this large-scale defense industry expo has traditionally attracted the attention of major domestic and foreign manufacturers of military products. Its main goals are to showcase the products of the Belarusian defense industry, innovative solutions, and to demonstrate the capabilities of enterprises in upgrading, overhauling military hardware and providing services to the Armed Forces.
