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“It’s a joke that you need to talk to crazy dictators … You need two sides to talk. If one side spits in your face and promises to bury you and destroy you, then who are you talking to,” said the professor in the talk series “Perspectives of Lithuanian Foreign Policy ”held at the Center for Eastern European Studies on Monday.
V. Landsbergis compared the situation to the demonstration held in the Lithuanian Seimas a few weeks ago and it turned into riots.
“A howling crowd comes somewhere in the Seimas and demands to speak to those howling people … They just want you to go out and be protected: here, we have shown how much we hate it. That is the whole result of the speech,” said V. Landsbergis .
According to the professor, the Western sanctions imposed on Belarus in general do not have a significant impact. And that, Landsberg argued, may even encourage the regime to continue activities that are being criticized and sanctioned by the West.
“The alleged pressure is seemingly insufficient. It can even become an incentive: yes, if you’re just pushing so hard, click harder and we’ll do ours. Such are the rules of the game. You put a little pressure, we get a little angry and We keep doing our thing. As in Krylov’s fable: “Wax listens and keeps eating stolen butter,” V. Landsbergis summed up the question about the impact of Western sanctions on Minsk.
