It is often said in Russia that Nikita Khrushchev made a wrong move by giving Crimea to the Ukrainian republic and therefore it is necessary to take the peninsula back, Aliaksandr Lukashenka noted at the press conference held on 17 October for representatives of Russian regional mass media .
The President reminded that a conference took place in Budapest in 1994, during which the UK, Russia, and the USA gave assurances, including to Belarus and Ukraine, that territorial integrity will be preserved in exchange for the removal of nuclear weapons. In other words the integrity of the borders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine the way they were back then was proclaimed.
However, Aliaksandr Lukashenka stated that Ukraine had given Russia a handle for annexing Crimea.
He reminded that he had already drawn attention of Ukrainian reporters to the fact that Crimea was taken over virtually without any fighting. “Why did you [Ukrainians] not fight for Crimea? Why did you surrender it to Russia without firing a single shot? It means you don’t think it was your territory,” he said.
“Why did you steer your revolution against our people — Russians and Russian-speaking Belarusians? Why did you start banning Russian language? Did you have no other problems to deal with? You started threatening lives of these people”. The head of state also pointed out another aspect of the Crimea problem. “Did you want to deploy NATO units in Crimea? You know what we think of that. Therefore, you should look for reasons in Ukraine, not in Russia. At the very least you gave Russia a handle to take over Crimea. It is your fault, not Russia’s,” he added.
www.belsat.eu/en, following BelTA
