Friendship vs.

The President of Belarus again staged an anti-Russian demarche, and a double one at that. On April 20, while the Russian prime minister was reporting on the work of the government to deputies, the Belarusian leader delivered his annual message to the people and parliament and stated that it was necessary to get rid of Russia's dictatorship and cooperate with the United States. He declared that he, and therefore the entire Belarusian people, could not be “bent over.”

True, he added that he doesn’t need a conflict with Russia - he just needs to stop raising oil prices, otherwise this supposedly “course of pragmatism, of so-called market relations” is aimed at undermining the foundations of our Union State. And in general, Russia behaves in such a way that the question of the survival of Belarus arises - Belarusian goods are being squeezed out of Russian markets.

In addition, on April 19, Lukashenko, as promised, received the fugitive President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who moved to Minsk from Taraz, Kazakhstan. The Belarusian leader announced that Bakiyev is under the protection of the Belarusian state and him personally, and his flight with his family to Minsk was organized by the “relevant services of Belarus.” Meanwhile, from the very beginning of the coup in Kyrgyzstan, the Russian leadership declared support for the new government and that Bakiyev, through his actions, himself led the situation in the country to this result. Lukashenko directly stated that Russian intelligence services eavesdropped on his negotiations with Bakiyev and used what they heard to wage an information war. Lukashenko noted that the events in Kyrgyzstan could become a reason for an extraordinary meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Kyrgyzstan is a member, but “everyone is silent.”