MOSCOW, 14 March (BelTA) – The world respects only the strong, so Belarus and Russia decided to join forces to defend their common Fatherland, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he addressed the Federation Council during his official visit to the Russian Federation, BelTA has learned.
According to the president, the world only reckons with economically successful, strong states and unions. The experience of the Soviet Union confirmed this. “If we act on our own, they will go hard on us,” he warned.
He recalled that due to historical circumstances, this once common Fatherland split into many states when the Soviet Union collapsed. And later, when the Union State of Belarus and Russia was in the nascence, many automatically compared it with the Soviet Union and kept asking when a merger would take place in this or that field. And this approach was fundamentally wrong. “Everyone approached it in the old-fashioned way - both in Russia and in Belarus: “What is the Union State about? What has it achieved? When will this and that happen?” What are you talking about? What do you expect to happen? Russia becoming part of Belarus or, vise versa, Belarus becoming part of Russia? This is unlikely to happen in the near future. And if we start banging on an open door, we will ruin everything we have achieved. We must proceed calmly, step by step, gradually building momentum, as we are doing now,” Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked.
In this regard, the president also mentioned the single currency. Such a proposal was once discussed and rejected primarily by the Central Bank of Russia. The idea to form a single parliament had the same fate.
“These cliches cannot be used for today's situation. In no case. We missed the moment when this could have been done,” Aleksandr Lukashenko is convinced.
He emphasized that when making certain integration decisions with Russia, he relied on outcomes of referendums where Belarusians voted for closer ties. However, at that time certain groups in Russia had apprehensions that “Lukashenko will come, seize power, and take away the Monomakh's Cap”, although the then President Boris Yeltsin firmly pushed for the development of allied relations. “We got stuck in analysis paralysis and lost time. A new generation has come. New generations live in independent, sovereign states,” the head of state remarked.
According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, Belarusians were consistently building allied relations with Russia. And on this path, they had to overcome very serious nationalistic sentiments fueled from the outside. “We pursued the policy that, as we thought, could benefit our people. Our actions were rooted in reality on the ground. Sometimes we were treading on thin ice,” the president said. According to him, Yugoslavia was an eloquent example proving that it is not possible to hold out on one's own.
According to the head of state, Belarus and Russia have banded together to protect the common Fatherland. “Today, we have the regional military task force of Belarus and Russia and the united regional air defense system at our disposal. Tactical nuclear weapons have been transferred to us, and the latest hypersonic weapons systems Oreshnik will soon be put into service with the Belarusian army.
With the adoption of the Military Doctrine and the Security Concept of the Union State, and the Treaty on Security Guarantees within the Union State, Belarus and Russia have reached an unprecedented level of strategic partnership and coordination in the military field, the president went on saying.
“The key ideas of these documents, such as the priority of preventive measures, indivisible security, equality and mutual respect for the interests of all states, have formalized the Union State security standards,” the Belarusian leader said.
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