The year was not easy, but we will not kneel. The presidential elections were held in total publicity. I didn’t have time for the election campaign: I had to save people from covid . There was no scent of peaceful actions after the elections. At the peak, 46,700 people participated in the protests . I would use the army if the protesters crossed the red line. The slaughterhouse was unleashed by the West. Akrestsin Street is not a sanatorium, but nobody was tortured there . You can’t scare me with an international tribunal. There was no mass betrayal in state structures. When i  metwith the opposition in the pre-trial detention center, I told them: “It’s good that you didn’t come to power.” If we gave up during the protests, a new world war would start, because Russia would never have lost Belarus. The FSB and the KGB work in close contact. Poland and Lithuania ordered Protasevich , and now I have to defend him. Timanovskaya was ruled by her cronies from Poland. We will recognize Crimea when the last Russian oligarch starts shipping his products there. It is not profitable to place a Russian military base in Belarus, but if necessary, all the armed forces of Russia will be here. SanctionsGreat Britain? Choke, American henchmen! There has never been and never will be repressions in Belarus. I just grew into this country, and she into me. No need to guess when Lukashenka will leave. Very soon. And pray to God that I agree to head the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly .

This is a rough retelling of the speech of Alexander Lukashenko during the “Big Conversation with the President”. You can watch it in full here . First-person phrases are not necessarily accurate quotes.

(C)MEDUZA 2021