NUCLEAR POWER IN BELARUS AND WORLDWIDE
MINSK, 19 December (BelTA) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko spoke about his fan preferences during the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar and the final match between Argentina and France as he spoke to the media in Minsk on 19 December, BelTA has learned.
“I always root for Brazil and then for Argentina. It is not even a philosophy for them. It is something sacred for them. Football is their whole existence,” the president said.
He said he watched the final match and Argentina absolutely deserved the win. “They dominated the whole game, both in regulation and extra time. But, let's be honest, God was with France in this game, because there is no such thing as being able to tie the score a minute and a half before the end, as the French striker did. But objectively, God, as the true Creator, seeing all of this, stepped back and gave the victory in a dramatic match to you know who. So, it was as it should have been: Argentina, with God's help, eventually earned that victory in a dramatic match. It could not have come at a better time.”
“Let me add: I think that God was on the side of the fans, too,” Vladimir Putin said. “Both teams should be thanked for the brilliant game. They created a true festival of football for all the sport fans in the world. Both teams played perfectly. They kept the drama until the last second. They fought very decently, but the strongest won.”
The Russian president also shared his impressions of the match. He said that he watched the second half of the match from the moment when the score was 2-2. “Then, of course, I couldn't refrain from calling the president [of Argentina] to congratulate him. I know that Argentina is a football country. People there are very passionate about it, they love their players, including the leading ones. I think they deserved this victory,” said Vladimir Putin.
The journalists, in turn, asked if there would have been a similar call from the Russian president to the French president if that country had won the World Cup, would Macron have had a chance to hear the call from Putin?
Ahead of the Russian president's answer, Aleksandr Lukashenko joked that, most likely, the situation would have been exactly the opposite and the French leader would have initiated the call: “It would have been he who would have called Vladimir Vladimirovich to joyfully say that they had won, and would have been waiting for congratulations from him.”
The Russian president answered the journalists' question as follows: “I have business relations with many of my counterparts, including the president of France. We do keep in touch by telephone, and he has visited Moscow since the start of the special military operation.”
