Nikolai Shvets. Image credit: Belarus One TV channel.
MINSK, 2 July (BelTA) – During a solemn assembly held in the Palace of the Republic on 2 July in anticipation of Independence Day Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko explained details of a recent exchange involving a man accused of staging a terrorist attack at the Machulishchi airfield outside Minsk, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “And a very small question that I see on people’s minds. My aides prompted me to talk about it. I didn’t even pay attention to it in social networks. Exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine. Very recently. I wouldn’t even talk about it since it is a routine matter. It is determined by the Russian president. He told me about it. The work proceeds with difficulties but all kinds of things happen. People may be taken prisoner here and over there. Russians have way more prisoners. Ukraine has way fewer. I also know that. From sources in Ukraine.”
“Pay attention. If our self-exiled opposition did not notice that a man had gone missing…. His name is Shvets. He tried to blow up a Russian reconnaissance aircraft in Machulishchi. You remember it. We carried out that operation within two days. We neutralized him and his accomplices. ‘Gone missing’. Naturally he surfaced in Ukraine and said he had been swapped. They should be joyful that their man is in Ukraine now. I don’t know whether he is free or not. Probably free. His parents met with this saboteur. Everything was simple. No priests were involved in it. It was a request of the Russian president: help free the prominent priest Ionafan if you can. Ukrainians approached us with this request. I asked Putin what we should do. This is why we gave this man to Ukraine. They gave us the priest,” the president revealed the details.
In turn, the Ukrainian side heard the proposal to exchange heavily injured Russians and they did just that. “They transferred three more people. We took them outside Brest and handed them over to Russians outside Gomel,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “A prominent Ukrainian army officer nominated these people for the exchange because they would have died otherwise. This is how we’ve managed to save lives of three people. There is no doubt it is important.”
The president explained he had decided to talk about the matter now because the self-exiled opposition is trying to use the news against Belarus by describing it as a successful escape of the saboteur. “Nobody has escaped. It was a request of the Russian president, which we have fulfilled while saving particularly these three guys, who will live,” the head of state said. Aleksandr Lukashenko’s words were met with applause and the president responded to it: “You see, you support such actions. I had absolutely no doubt about it. We are people and we should act like people do.”
“Don’t be surprised that extremely ill people (this is how they are described in mass media) will be released from prisons in several days. Those are people, who didn’t manage to flee and are in prisons. They were intent on destroying the country in 2020,” Aleksandr Lukashenko continued. “These are truly people with grave illnesses. Mostly with cancer. We approach everyone and treat everyone humanely. I believe that people in distress have no citizenship and we should help them. Because we are Slavs. We don’t want wars. We don’t want conflicts but if we get involved, we are forced to respond.”
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