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"Lukashenko Looked Very Nervous And Kept Making Excuses"

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"Lukashenko Looked Very Nervous And Kept Making Excuses"

Why does a dictator have to grovel all the time?

Alexander Lukashenko's speech at the meeting on the occasion of "Independence Day" is a traditional and to some extent routine event. It usually follows the same familiar pattern, writes Valery Karbalevich in an article for "Radio Svaboda".

This time the usual pattern broke down. Alexander Lukashenko looked very nervous and constantly justified himself.

First of all, he justified himself about the date of celebrating "Independence Day":

"The choice of the date of our main state holiday is historically justified and accepted by the heart of each of us, each Belarusian. This choice is the will not only of us, contemporaries, who could not do otherwise, but of our fathers and grandfathers."

Almost 30 years have passed since Lukashenko came up with this artificial date of Belarus' "independence day," and he still has to justify himself.

Phantasmagorical world picture

This time Lukashenko's speech was almost nothing about achievements and socio-economic life. He mostly "exposed enemies" - external and internal. And he did it somehow fiercely, with a burst, spoke a lot from himself, deviating from the written text. He spent much of his time exposing the insidious West, talking about "Hitler's European Union".

Sometimes his picture of the world looked phantasmagorical, like a stream of strange consciousness.

There, for example, is such a story:

"And look what is happening in France, Britain, Germany. Not because I'm hyping things up. Governments there change every year or two. That says a lot. So, they have done something wrong in their own countries and they do not want to cover up their crimes with their tails, but through strikes on civilians, as it happened in defenseless Gaza or strikes on Iran..."

What do France, Great Britain and Germany have to do with the events in Gaza and strikes on Iran? What crimes do they want to "cover up"?

Or here is another story. Lukashenko assures that Western countries "want to fight against us, including Ukraine (the Slavic nations - we are always at their throats)". But another state is now fighting against Ukraine - Russia, which Lukashenko's regime is helping.

It seems that the dictator lives in his fantasy reality and tries to impose it on the whole country.

Iranian plot

Lukashenko mentioned strikes on Iran many times, returning to this topic again and again. It affected him deeply. Because it's easy to draw parallels here with Belarus. In the sense that both countries seek to possess nuclear weapons, and this is what it led to in the case of Iran. Moreover, Lukashenko justifies Iran's intention to possess nuclear weapons:

"Why should a country that possesses nuclear weapons bomb the same country, which may even aspire to it (to defend itself). What right does it have to bomb?"

On the other hand, Lukashenko actually admits that the idea of placing nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus is not very popular. And it is quite logical that doubts have increased in connection with the Iranian events.

"I understand some people who say that they have placed nuclear weapons in Belarus and put themselves under attack," Lukashenko said.

But he is convinced that such an idea was imposed from the outside. This was the second time Lukashenko had to justify himself.

About the talks with Keith Kellogg

Lukashenko then devoted much of his speech to talks with the U.S. delegation led by Trump's special envoy Keith Kellogg. Apparently, this issue received a great resonance in the society, including among his supporters. They say that this is some kind of turn in politics, had to "bow down" to the U.S., etc. And again Lukashenko had to justify himself and explain himself.

First of all, he claims that he "never bent on talking to people who, as diplomats say, are not equal to him in status". One can assume that there were some reproaches to him in this matter.

Second, Lukashenko explains the reasons why he went to these talks. The main one is that the American administration, allegedly, finally recognized him as "president":

"The fact that they discuss the situation in the world with your 'president' is not bad. It means that they respect the point of view... Those who previously did not pronounce the word "president" after 2020. Today they come to "President". They say that there is a "president" in Belarus, and it is necessary to talk to him, because he defines something on behalf of the Belarusian people".

The word "president" is mentioned four times (!) in the story. From this we can draw a conclusion about the scale of the non-recognition complex that the ruler of Belarus suffers from.

But, to all appearances, Lukashenko is very dissatisfied with the reaction to these negotiations both in Belarus and, possibly, in Russia.

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