Lukashenko on closure of checkpoints by Poland and Lithuania: it’s economic provocation and Belarus will respond adequately
The closure of checkpoints on the border with Poland and Lithuania is an economic provocation from these countries – as stated by Aleksandr Lukashenko in an interview with foreign and Belarusian media
“You see how Poland and Lithuania are behaving. From an economic point of view, they are constantly provoking us,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. “They closed border checkpoints. This is an economic provocation, because there is no trade, no economy. They are just provoking us. But this is up to a certain time. Now we have decided how to respond to this. Let’s respond softly first. If they don’t understand, we will reinforce. We also have enough leverage for this. But it is still an escalation, leading to bad things. We don’t want this. But we do not initiate it, we are forced to respond. And we do this adequately, using symmetrical measures. If it comes to the point where we have to take asymmetric measures, we will. They are on the table, but we don’t want that. We want to live normally, to be friends with the Poles, with the Lithuanians, as it has always been. We even ignore the fact that they draw maps at school with the border near Minsk. They dream of their dominance from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. But we will solve them calmly, since we remember the lessons of 1941.”
