NUCLEAR POWER IN BELARUS AND WORLDWIDE
MINSK, 18 May (BelTA) - NATO's actions may lead to a global conflict, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he met with participants of the CSTO PA Council meeting in Minsk on 18 May, BelTA has learned.
The head of state stated that the negative trends, which have been repeatedly talked about over the past year, are becoming a foreign political reality. NATO has been building its military presence and offensive potential near the western borders of the CSTO. The alliance has been conducting large-scale exercises and modernizing the military infrastructure at an accelerated pace, including in neighboring countries.
"Some states have turned into a testing ground for the destruction of old Western hardware and testing new weapons," the president said.
"After Finland's recent entry into the alliance and Sweden's impending accession, we have once again witnessed the expansion of the North Atlantic bloc. These actions have put the world on the very dangerous brink of a global conflict," Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
He noted that the West justified its actions by "Russia's intervention, aggression" in Ukraine. However, the Belarusian president considers this explanation untenable: "What does the special military operation have to do with or what does Finland's accession to NATO have to do with the SMO? Absolutely none. They waited for the moment. They decided that this moment had come."
"I think that this will not cause much harm to either Russia or Belarus. No matter what decisions politicians make, for example, in Finland, the people there are not stupid and know what war is," the Belarusian leader said.
The president stated: "Despite the rapid decline in living standards and deteriorating economic prospects in European countries, the West is escalating international tensions and openly admits, with the voices of some politicians, that it is preparing for war."
Ukraine remains the central arena of confrontation, the battlefield on the European continent. In the wake of the military clash there all the most important spheres of interstate relations - political, economic and humanitarian - have been violated.
