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On Monday, the European Union, the United States, Great Britain and Canada stepped up pressure on Lukashenko by announcing coordinated sanctions against dozens of individuals and legal entities. It is a response to human rights abuses in Belarus and also to the crash landing of a Ryanair passenger plane in Minsk last month to arrest Belarusian opposition activist Raman Pratasevich and his friend who was flying from Athens to Vilnius.
Speaking at a World War II commemoration event on Tuesday, Lukashenko, 66, said the sanctions were part of the West’s current “hybrid war” with his country.
“We did not expect Germany to participate in this collective conspiracy,” he said. “Those whose ancestors destroyed not only one in three Belarusians, but also millions of unborn children during the Great Patriotic War.”
Mr. Lukashenko also drew attention to the “symbolic” timing of the sanctions, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Addressing German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who called for broad economic sanctions against Belarus on Monday, Mr. Lukashenko said: “Who are you? A repentant German … or a successor to the Nazis?
Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994 and has suppressed the unrest that rocked the country for months after the August presidential elections. The opposition and western democracies consider these elections, after which Lukashenko is in his sixth term, to be rigged.
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry also condemned the new sanctions on Tuesday, and Prime Minister Raman Haluchenko said authorities are considering “appropriate retaliation.”
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