Lithuania’s border closure with Belarus is a provocation, Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxim Ryzhenkov said on the air of the First News TV Channel, BelTA has learned.
“This is some kind of provocation. If someone needs a pretext to justify certain actions with their rhetoric (against Belarus, against Russia, and ultimately against their own citizens), that is exactly what they go looking for. As for those balloons smuggling some cigarettes that were flying around, that has been going on for ages. Such smugglers certainly exist. But notably, we received no formal notes. They could not even identify what those balloons were or what they carried. They never found out,” Maxim Ryzhenkov emphasized.
The minister noted that Lithuania can blame someone in Belarus for smuggling as long as it wants, but who is operating on the other side of the border? In his opinion, organized gangs of Lithuanians use smuggling for profit. And it is with this category of persons that the Lithuanian government should deal with, the Belarusian foreign minister stated. “Deal with them, tackle smuggling in your own country, and there will be no such questions,” he added.
“This is some kind of provocation. If someone needs a pretext to justify certain actions with their rhetoric (against Belarus, against Russia, and ultimately against their own citizens), that is exactly what they go looking for. As for those balloons smuggling some cigarettes that were flying around, that has been going on for ages. Such smugglers certainly exist. But notably, we received no formal notes. They could not even identify what those balloons were or what they carried. They never found out,” Maxim Ryzhenkov emphasized.
The minister noted that Lithuania can blame someone in Belarus for smuggling as long as it wants, but who is operating on the other side of the border? In his opinion, organized gangs of Lithuanians use smuggling for profit. And it is with this category of persons that the Lithuanian government should deal with, the Belarusian foreign minister stated. “Deal with them, tackle smuggling in your own country, and there will be no such questions,” he added.
“This all resembles some kind of provocation, the goal of which is to justify certain anti-Belarusian, anti-Russian approaches that might result in stopping transit to Kaliningrad Oblast and applying further restrictions on air communication. As if to say, 'look, we have the barbarians around us who are engaged in who knows what’. That is the purpose behind all of this: to justify anti-Belarusian, anti-Russian actions to their own people. They need to dig up some negativity to make sure that a frightened Lithuanian citizen, who is distressed by the developing situation feeling the need to run and find a bomb shelter and to stockpile food, will nonetheless support the authorities because 'this is indeed a threat from the East,'" Maxim Ryzhenkov said.
The head of the foreign ministry also conveyed the position of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. According to the minister, during a meeting with the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches in the Vatican, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, the head of state called it “absolute nonsense” to think that Belarus or Russia are planning a march on Paris, London, or anywhere else.