MINSK, 7 May (BelTA) – Belarus has no intention of succumbing to any provocations and fighting a war against anyone. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement during a solemn meeting on the occasion of Victory Day on 7 May, BelTA has learned.
The head of state stressed that the world has never been closer to a nuclear war than it is now. He remarked that statements by Western politicians spearheaded by France in Europe lead to inflated tensions not only on the European continent but in the entire world.
Aleksandr Lukashenko noted: “I am a peaceful man. I don’t want a war. I am a historian and know well that Belarus has never waged its own wars. Belarus has always been a theater of war. I didn’t study World War Two and the Great Patriotic War [of 1941-1945] only from books. When I became the president, I found out the true state of affairs at our border in June 1941 and before that when we believed in what we were being told. We were being convinced that the war would not happen, that everything was fine.”
The president pointed out that Belarus does not intend to succumb to any provocations and is not going to fight a war against anyone. “Throwing the country and millions of people into the furnace of war is not my job. Our job is to inflict unacceptable damage to the enemy if once again an enemy soldier steps on our soil like it happened in the past. And the enemy has to understand it,” the Belarusian leader stated. “When you understand that you can instantly get what you cannot survive, that you can get unacceptable damage, then you will never start this war. If your head is not totally empty yet.”
“This is why we don’t trust any expectations. We state once again that we are not going to attack anyone. We just respond to what is going on. Not somewhere far away, in the Gaza Strip where Israel bombs civilians. Where tens of thousands of people have been killed to no international uproar. We don’t interfere in these conflicts. We take care of our own land and respond to what is happening nearby. I repeat once again: 90,000 [foreign military personnel] have been concentrated at our borders. Can anyone here stand up and say that 10,000 out of those 90,000 will not attack our border tomorrow? No one,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.
This is why, the president added, as the commander-in-chief he has decided to deploy military units on all the probable directions of attack. Units of the border service and the Internal Affairs Ministry are also employed in the defensive measures.
