Opinions & Interviews

Belarus president defends historical truth

MINSK, 2 July (BelTA) - Belarus does not romanticize its history but will never allow rewriting its glorious pages, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he addressed the official event on the eve of Belarus’ Independence Day, BelTA has learned.

“In the name of historical justice we do not romanticize the history of the native land. We do not paint it in rosy colors but we will never allow rewriting the glorious pages of this history,” the president said.

Today there are many debates regarding the miscalculations made in the beginning of the Great Patriotic war, the president said. Various destructive forces within the state but mostly from the outside are speculating on this theme which is not easy for the country. “Indeed, there were many failures. We did not get used to discussing them, even in the last years of the Soviet Union. These failures are inevitable in difficult periods of the formation of a state. We did make these mistakes in the 1940s. Otherwise the Germans would not have approached Moscow so fast,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The head of state underlined that Belarus does not allow shifting the focus and the responsibility for the war casualties on the people who believed, till the last, in the honesty of the political agreements, assurances and promises reached before the war. “We will not allow distracting the attention from the real culprits of the catastrophe of the 20th century. This is the goal of those who are bombarding the history of the Great Patriotic War today. We will not judge the past but we will learn its lessons, even cruel and unpleasant ones,” the president said.

We should fight for peace in peacetime, Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “Seeing how the current system of international relations is being eroded today, how the respect for human life is being lost gain, we must stick together to protect our sovereignty, to fight against wars and conflicts with our active position. We should not sit silent but call on the nations of the world to take responsible decisions, to put an end to all hot spots on the planet. If we remain silent being guided by the principle ‘not in my backyard’, then we will have to deal with these things at home. And the things are close,” he stressed.

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