MINSK, 4 August (BelTA) – Global powers use the pandemic as a smokescreen to aggressively advance their interests, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he delivered his annual address to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly on 4 August, BelTA has learned.
“The pandemic has laid bare all the systemic problems. It became a cover for the unceremonious advancement by major global powers of their foreign policy, trade and economic interests. They use all kinds of methods; they stick at nothing,” Aleksandr Lukashenko is convinced.
He stated that the world's biggest economies engaged in a cutting-throat confrontation on all fronts. These are the United States of America that has been virtually the ultimate global leader for the past decades and China that broke into the world elite and is now pushing for real multi-polarity. The European Union and Russia did not stay aside as they sought to play a major role. “In other words, the entire planet is in turmoil, and this when Japan, Korea, Brazil and India, as well as the Arab world and a number of other major economies have not weighed in yet,” the head of state said.
According to the president, the entire world has plunged into the chaos of trade wars, national protectionism and an information clash. Integration structures are experiencing a fundamental crisis, while some of them have collapsed and keep existing only on paper, he noted. Brexit was a powerful indicator of this process in the EU, so was the aggravation of disagreements between old and new Europe inside the European Union, Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
“Tensions are rising in the military field, which pushes nations to a new round of an arms race. Just think about it: over a third of countries are involved in military conflicts directly or indirectly. When you think about it, you realize that our planet is approaching an abyss slowly but steadily. It seems that it only takes to strike a match to put the entire planet on fire,” the president said.
According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, the worst thing is that international legal multilateral political instruments of crisis settlements that the countries were so proud of during the cold war have virtually downgraded into anachronisms and are disregarded by everyone. “Global ruling elites were not capable of working out new mechanisms, unfortunately. Sensible politicians vocally lament a sharp deficit of a meaningful dialogue in international relations. But they are not heard,” Aleksandr Lukashenko added.
