Lukashenko: No occupation of Belarus as long as I am president

Occupation of Belarus will never happen under the current government, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said while approving the decision on the state border protection for 2022 on 24 January, BelTA has learned. “I have never stooped to the level of arguing with my opponents and rivals, but today, having received a media review, I was surprised to learn that ‘Belarus had been occupied'. As the commander-in-chief, I have overlooked it somehow. Maybe you have failed to tell me that ‘the occupation of Belarus' has already taken place?” Aleksandr Lukashenko asked ironically Chairman of the State Border Committee Anatoly Lappo.

The president noted that the opposition media are constantly plying up the Belarus-Russia exercises, counting how many troops from Russia will arrive in Belarus. Moreover, they call the exercises ‘the occupation plan'. In particular, such a wording was used by Zenon Pozniak.

According to him, hundreds of wagons of military hardware from Russia will arrive in Belarus in addition to 100,000 soldiers. “I rarely mention names, but I have cited Zenon Pozniak not because he is some kind of a model for us. On the contrary, he is the antithesis of our policy.

But I know him very well, and he knows me. The man is smart, he understands everything. No one from the current self-exiled opposition is close to him in terms of understanding," the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said that the politician who left Belarus attempts to speculate on the topic of exercises with Russia and interpret the facts in his own way: «Listen, the numbers do not fit. It's easy to calculate, even if you don't know what an army is.» «But that's not the point. I would like to ask, Mr Pozniak, where he, a fighter for