Events

MINSK, 8 April (BelTA) – The West is coming to understand that it has already exhausted its reserves to pressurize Belarus, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at a session of the Security Council on 8 April, BelTA has learnt.

“Fortunately, political experts in the West are realizing, although belatedly, that they have exhausted their reserves to pressurize Belarus. We can hear calls to work out new approaches and positions,” the head of state said.

Speaking about the forthcoming ice hockey world championship, Alexander Lukashenko noted that this kind of competitions has always had a political subtext. “Sport became part of politics a long time ago. And often, or I would say in most of the cases, this politics is unscrupulous and dirty,” the head of state said.

“We should not forget that there are a lot of speculations over this championship, starting from the calls of our opposition, the so-called fifth column, to boycott the competition, up to the attempts of foreign ill-wishers to blackmail us,” the President reminded.

“Individual western politicians tried to make drama over the world championship in Minsk to their own advantage. They used the most sophisticated ways of information pressure. Instead of an objective analysis of the situation in Belarus they prefer to get information from extremely biased sources and make far-fetched complaints and political demands,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

According to the President, the support of international sports organizations is particularly important for Belarus in this environment. Alexander Lukashenko emphasized that despite the tough pressure on the part of individual European organizations and politicians, the International Ice Hockey Federation and Rene Fasel personally did not back down, did not compromise their values. “It takes courage. It is not that easy to withstand such a pressure when you live in the West,” the President said.