Lukashenko on Belarus and Russia: One Fatherland, two states

There are two states but one Fatherland in the space from Brest to Vladivostok, Belarusian President Aleksandr said in an interview with the VGTRK journalist, radio and TV host Vladimir Soloviev, BelTA has learned.

"As for the 'from Brest to Vladivostok' vision, this is what I believe in. I've always stuck to it. It's just that the Russians did not want to hear it and talk about it, especially Russian media. There are two states, but one Fatherland," the Belarusian leader said.

In the interview, Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled his meeting with the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin after he won the presidential election in Belarus in 1994.

"The first presidential election after the collapse of the Soviet Union was held in the mid-1990s. I won accidentally. Back then Russia and Yeltsin supported Vyacheslav Kebich [Chairman of the Belarusian Council of Ministers from 1990 to 1994]. He was the main alternative candidate (to our nationalists Stanislav Shushkevich and their ilk, not me). Zenon Pozniak, Stanislav Shushkevich were one team, and Vyacheslav Kebich was in the other team. Boris Yeltsin, of course, supported him. These two forces lost the election, which I won with more than 80% in the second round after the rigged first round (I won it too, I know this now)," Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled the election campaign.

"So I came to Moscow. I met Boris who was standing there, and it was hard to know what he was thinking. But I saw this wariness. We walked into the door simultaneously and he gave me this look. We paused. But I reacted quickly and said: "Boris Nikolayevich, if you think that I came to a foreign land and a foreign Moscow, then you are mistaken. This is my Moscow too," the president continued.

In turn, Vladimir Soloviev noted that for Boris Yeltsin the Belarusian head of state was a person who won against all odds in 1994. "You were practically the only one in the post-Soviet space who spoke against the Belovezh Accords. Hence the wariness. Because you were a counterpoint, a voice against the policy that Yeltsin and his team of young reformers chose," he said. “You have shown that Belarus was not run by oligarchs.You opted it out.”

Written by: belta.by