Lukashenka: “Relations with Medvedev are bad. If not to say worse”

• 1.10.2010, 14:44

The dictator is sure that he is “being cracked down on” by all Russian mass media at the direction of the country's top leadership.

“Recently one of our ministers responsible for ideology returned from Russia. There one of the persons responsible for mass media came up to him and asked: “How do we crack down on you?” You are cracking down on us alright,” Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated in Minsk at a press-conference for Russian journalists, Interfax-Zapad reports.

He added that everything is done “by Medvedev’s command. I do not know how much Putin supports him, but I have information he holds the same position. We have information that it is Medvedev’s team.”

“It is the same team which hinted to Shaimiev, was giving hard time to Murtaza Rakhimov, referring to children and so on, and then they drew near Ilyumzhinov, and then they attacked me, then – Luzhkov,” the Belarusian leader said.

Answering the question about the relations with Medvedev-Putin duo, Lukashenka said: “We have bad relations, if not to say worse. You know, when a person is in China and says that he expects “nothing good”… (During his recent visit to China Medvedev, when asked on what he expects from the presidential election in Belarus, said: “Nothing good. I am joking”). “What are you expecting in the light of such politics? He, though, said it was a joke. But many a true word is spoken in jest...” “And then he (Medvedev) embarked on a declamation on the human rights and democracy. If Russia shows us the way it should be done, we will be no worse then. They are trying to prick or give a hard time to us every time the opportunity occurs, or even wipe us out. But it is not a big deal, we’ll endure that,” Lukashenka said.

He does not find it necessary to react to negative information about the country in Russian mass media, but he says that if necessary Minsk is able to give a good answer.

“If the situation would require our response, we certainly won’t keep silent. But there is no situation today for answers, for firing guns in response,” Lukashenka said.

He noted that in the programs of Russian mass media he had been charged with allegedly stealing $7 billions from the budget of the country. “Then I said to your “tandem”: take it if you find it. It is impossible to steal such money in a year even in the Kremlin, and for us it is half of the annual budget of the country,” Lukashenka said.

The dictator finds that attempts of a certain group of Russian politicians to present Belarus as a freeloader for Russia, and the Belarusian president as a thief, a murderer and a traitor, are futile.

“While before the Russian information space was simply closed to news about Belarus, now it is unfortunately being pumped full of unabashed lies, forthright nonsense, and disinformation about Belarus,” Lukashenka said.

“We are not aggrieved by Russians, as we know that the things happening around Belarus today is a plan of a handful of politicians, though high-ranking ones,” Lukashenka said.

The Belarusian leader reminded Russia about ensuring Russia’s security in the Western direction by means of Belarusian air defence.

“That’s all, you have nothing more here. Do you need to destroy that now? You can destroy that. But to return to it later would be virtually impossible,” the dictator said.

The Belarusian leader has also criticized the decision of Dmitry Medvedev to dismiss the Mayor of Moscow.

As said by him, the president of Russia should have real grounds for firing a governor, in particular, criminal or other nature, but not loss of trust.

Lukashenka also informed that at the border of Belarus some courier was detained. He was carrying $200,000 intended for the Belarusian opposition.

As said by him, the money for the Belarusian opposition had been sent from Russia. “They [oppositionists] have found one more sponsor, businessmen from Russia,” he said. “We know who is paying this money, as such a courier was detained recently.”

As said by the dictator, the money from Russia (for support of the Belarusian opposition) are delivered to Belarus not directly, but through other countries, in particular, Lithuania and Poland.