Belarus could have faced a situation similar to that in Ukraine if Western countries had succeeded in “separating it from Russia” in 2020, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.
His remarks came a day after a US delegation led by John Coale, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, arrived in Minsk.
“They [US diplomats] do not tell me that they would like us to move away from Russia, to tear us away from Russia, perhaps even painfully. They tried to do this in 2020. If they had succeeded, we would have had what Ukraine has now,” Lukashenko said at a youth forum marking Belarusian National Unity Day.
Mass protests broke out in Belarus in August 2020 following the announcement of the results of the presidential election. Belarusian authorities claimed at the time that the protests were organised and financed from abroad.
By Vugar Khalilov
