Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko slams EU sanctions against Belarus

BREST, 23 June (BelTA) - Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko commented on the latest EU sanctions against Belarus as he attended a ceremony to lay wreaths in the Brest Fortress on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on 22 June, BelTA has learned.

“80 years have passed and what? A new hot war. Look: isn’t is symbolic? Yesterday they imposed economic sanctions against our people and businesses. On 22 June, at night. Indeed, they did not learn anything from their past," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

"We did not expect one country to participate in this collective conspiracy - Germany whose ancestors killed every third Belarusian in the Great Patriotic War and millions of unborn children,” the president stressed. “All those 80 years after 1945 the Germans wer begging the world, in Europe, the former Soviet Union for forgiveness. They were repenting, sobbing, on their knees, asking to open monuments, to bury the still unburied Germans - fascists who came to our land. We were kind and tolerant. We who were tormented opened their hearts and souls and treated them in a humane way. And what did we get in return?"

The head of state quoted the German foreign minister as saying that the sanctions should be extended to sectors of the Belarusian economy. “This can be interpreted as ‘let them die there’. So I would like to ask him: Mr. Maas, who are you? A German who was  repenting yesterday or a heir to the Nazis? Who are you? Please, answer publicly. At least to your people. There is no need repenting in public for the sins of your predecessors. These repentances, which we recently heard in Trostenets from the presidents of Austria and Germany are worthless. No words will hide the plans your are hatching," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“You must do more than just repent. You must kneel before the Belarusian people for another 100 years thanking us for a chance to be born after that war. You must do everything to heal the war wounds in our hearts and souls. You must not strangle us. You, the Germans, the Poles, the so-called European Union, must carry us in your arms. Because we saved you from the brown plague. You would have been slaves along the Soviet people should they had prevailed,” the president said.

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