Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko: Sanctions against Belarus are pure fascism

MINSK, 27 September (BelTA) – Sanctions against Belarus and its people are pure fascism, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the Q&A session titled “Open Microphone with the President” with students of engineering and technical universities of Minsk on 27 September, BelTA has learned.

Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that the West had imposed sanctions not against him personally (as they say, the dictator), but against the entire country and all Belarusians, including students, their parents and relatives. “This is fascism,” the president is convinced. “They teach us democracy. They demand humanity from us. This is not even double standards any more, but a complete degradation of human conscience and dignity.”

Belarus is an export-oriented country with an open economy, the head of state stressed. “This is why they are imposing sanctions on us, forcing us to look for new markets and components we do not produce yet. We are finding them. We know that all the difficulties are temporary. This is a time of opportunities,” the president said. In the global world it is impossible to halt the transfer of technologies or products, he added.

Sanctions encourage those sanctioned to look for possible ways out of the crisis situation. For example, design bureaus of large enterprises, the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, and domestic universities are actively engaged in import substitution. “It is the right thing to do, and we have no other way out if we want to survive. If we do not learn how to make components for our products, no one will need these products,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
 
Today Belarus produces high-tech buses and electric buses, cars, tractors and harvesters which are as good as the best imported samples. “We have achievements in microelectronics (we have even made our own laptop), in information technologies, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. I have only named a few things. The country is developing, and its people are developing too,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“We will also make our own smartphone. We must do it, because gadgets, as you have recently noticed, have been turned into military weapons. This is already a matter of national security,” the president said.

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