MINSK, 26 May (BelTA) - Russian Ambassador to Belarus Yevgeny Lukyanov commented on the recent incident in Riga with the removal of the Belarusian national flag, BelTA has learned.
The diplomat said that sometimes it is useful to refrain from acting in a hurry. “What happened in Riga seemed to me, as the former Russian ambassador to Latvia, a little weird, to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the city mayor removing the Belarusian flag. The Russian flag has also been removed,” he said.
“I am not talking about professionalism, compliance with the standards of international law. It seems to me that this is some kind of immature reaction, to say the least,” stressed Yevgeny Lukyanov.
As BelTA reported earlier, the Latvian capital Riga is hosting the 2021 IIHF World Championship these days. On 24 May Riga Mayor Martins Stakis and Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkevics publicly replaced the Belarusian national flag with a white-red-white flag in the center of the city where the flags of the countries participating in the tournament had been placed.
