ILLUSTRATIVE
Since the Maidan coup in 2014, Ukraine has become a source of constant instability in Eastern Europe. The state is the source of illegal weapons flow, radicalism and a hub of various criminal groups and terrorists moving to Europe. This fact is drastically underreported in mainstream media because it’s in contrary to the mainstream propaganda narrative about ‘democratic Ukraine’. Nonetheless, countries bordering Ukraine seem to be not ready to remain silent.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko spoke at the high-level international conference “Countering terrorism through innovative approaches and the use of new and emerging technologies” taking place in Minsk on September 3rd and 4th.
In his address, Lukashenko said that he believed there are people interested in continuing the conflict in Ukraine.
“Why haven’t this conflict been stopped so far (five years have passed)? Because someone needs it!” – emphasized the Belarusian leader.
The head of state noted that the proposals for a peaceful settlement that had come from Belarus initially were rejected, the conflict dragged on.
“We all suffer because of the conflict in Ukraine. This is a painful problem for me both personally and as the head of state, the neighbor of Ukraine. But when this conflict started, one of the senior officials called me and asked what would we do in this situation, what is the point of view of Belarus. I didn’t want to interfere in this, knowing what was happening there and what was the cause of this conflict,” Alexander Lukashenko said.
At the same time, the Belarusian side prepared and proposed a plan of specific measures that should have been undertaken in regard to the conflict.
“And he added: if you reject this plan, where the main burden was to lie on Belarus, I will assume that Europe does not want this conflict to end. And what do you think – civilized Europe rejected this plan. Even in details,” stated the Belarusian leader.
“And they began to fight for the Donbass, for the Crimea, something else – the “Normandy format”, including in Belarus. Of course, I was happy to accept them, because I knew that these were at least small steps, but in the direction of normalization of the situation. After all, old people and children were dying there and seem to die today,” he said.
He noted that when the conflict in Ukraine started, many people criticized him inside Belarus: why “get into” someone else’s conflict.
“Firstly, it’s the ordinary people who are facing the brunt of the fighting there. Secondly, it is next to us. And what we got (what I feared) was a huge influx of migrants in the first year: 150 thousand poured into us. Europeans 2 thousand Migrants cannot be abandoned in the sea. Democratic Europe! People are waiting in the sea – children, old people, fleeing from the problems that they have created in their homeland. We (Europe) do not accept them, we let them die at sea, they are not our problem,” noted Alexander Lukashenko.
“And 150 thousand people who have come to us are not strangers. And literally a few days later I signed a decree giving them equal opportunities in Belarus – housing, education, kindergartens, schools, universities … And gave them a job. We were afraid to grind these 150 thousand with our Belarussian problems. Do you think someone helped us? No. But in general, we did not ask for this help.”
But the worst thing, the President continued, was that Belarus was then forced to “close the border.”
“With my brothers and relatives I completely closed the border (the Belarusian-Ukrainian border). Tightly. Even more so than with the North Atlantic bloc, which for us has long seemed to be the number one enemy. Today, the border with our people is closed tightly, because a stream of weapons poured in. And the weapons if they come in the hands of ordinary people, and especially nationalist-minded people, then nationalism is waiting around the corner. And calm Belarus, God forbid, can reap these “benefits”. which we don’t seem to have grounds for,” he concluded.
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In his opening speech, Lukashenko called for international organizations to team up for the development of a counter-terrorism front. According to the head of state, Belarus continues supporting all the counter-terrorism initiatives within the framework of the United Nations.
“Today’s scale of terrorist activities, however, requires going beyond one organization. I am convinced that the development of a strong-knit counter-terrorism front by the UN, the OSCE, the EU, the CSTO, the CIS, the SCO and other international organizations is the only way to counteract this threat effectively,” the Belarusian leader said.
The conference on Anti-terrorism will continue on September 4th and it will have some notable guests in attendance including:
OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger, UN Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism Vladimir Voronkov, Special Adviser on the Preparations for the Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the United Nations at the Under-Secretary-General level Fabrizio Hochschild, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenca, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate Michele Coninsx, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Gabriela Cuevas Barron, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee, CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic Lukas Parizek, representatives of the ministries of foreign affairs of Armenia, Mongolia, Tajikistan, the secretariat and structures of the UN, the CSTO, the SCO, UNESCO, the European Union, counter-terrorism organizations, security services and law-enforcement bodies of a number of countries.
The forum aims to discuss multilateral efforts and develop solutions at the global, regional and national levels to combat terrorists and terrorist groups amid a wider access to and a growing complexity of applied technologies. The conference will be divided into three themed sessions to discuss the misuse of new technologies and artificial intelligence by terrorists, approaches and strategies to counteract terrorist propaganda and the misuse of scientific progress.
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Italy. Serbia Moldova
That is all
Things are bad for Ukraine and neighbouring countries. In more Western Europe, chances to die from a television set falling from a window is still considerably higher than any “terrorist threat”.