MINSK, 21 April (BelTA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the information about the coup attempt in Belarus as he delivered the Address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow on 21 April, TASS reports.
Vladimir Putin said that Western countries are ignoring the information on the plans to stage a coup d'etat in Belarus and to assassinate the country's leader Aleksandr Lukashenko.
He stressed that politically motivated illegal sanctions and attempts by individual states to impose their will on others have become a commonplace practice. “But today this practice is growing into something more dangerous. I am referring to the recent direct attempt to organize a coup d'etat in Belarus and assassinate the president of that country. It is telling that even these egregious actions are not condemned by the so-called collective West. They have turned a blind eye to it, pretending that nothing has happened at all," Vladimir Putin said.
Plans to organize coups and kill top officials, as in the case with the president of Belarus, are unacceptable, regardless of the attitude to the policy of the Belarusian leader, Vladimir Putin stressed. "Organizing coups, political assassinations, including senior officials, is way too much. Things have gone too far," the Russian leader said.
He also noted that the confessions of the plot participants attest to the preparation of a massive cyberattack on the country. “It will be suffice to mention the confessions of the detained participants of the conspiracy to shut down Minsk, including the city infrastructure and means of communication, the entire power grid of the capital of Belarus. This shows, by the way, that preparations for a massive cyberattack were underway. You can't do it otherwise by, for example, flipping one switch," Vladimir Putin said.
"It seems that it is not for nothing that Western colleagues have persistently rejected Russia's numerous proposals to establish an international dialogue in information and cybersecurity," Vladimir Putin continued. "We have offered it many times. They do not want to even discuss this issue," he added.
