Now in the center of Europe there is not one, but two wars unleashed by Russia. Russia's war against a free and independent Ukraine. And Russia's war against a free and independent Belarus.
In both cases, the illegitimate government of Belarus is fighting against Ukraine, and Belarus is fighting for Russia. But there are those who fight for Belarus instead of them.
And just like Ukraine, we need active allies who have a strategy.
Yes, there are no hostilities on our territory now, and therefore we are not asking for Hymarsas, Leopards, or F-16 fighters. The capture of Belarus by Russia is carried out in a different way. This is a hybrid occupation that Russia is spending huge resources on.
Russia is spending billions to keep the puppet regime of Lukashenka in power, to ensure its mass repressions against Belarusians, to implement the integration programs of the Union State - the project to absorb Belarus. For the eradication of national identity and the ideological rewiring of Belarusians in the spirit of the ideas of racism and the "Russian world".
Today, Russia is the only country that has a strategy towards Belarus. This is a strategy for absorbing Belarus within the framework of the Union State project and its dissolution in the “Russian world”. The leader of this strategy, the tool for its implementation is the puppet regime of Lukashenka.
He proved this by becoming an accomplice in the war against Ukraine in 2022, and continues to prove it today by participating in Russian war crimes, the deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories, the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons and PKK Wagner mercenaries in Belarus. And destroy everything Belarusian.
The Union State of Belarus and Russia is the basis and main instrument of Russia's imperial policy. Without Belarus, its imperial projects become impossible. Because it becomes impossible to continue the war against Ukraine.
Because the war against Ukraine is waged not by Russia alone, but by the Union State of Belarus and Russia. In which Belarus is located only because the Lukashenka regime exists.
And that is why I would like to recall the words of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Urmas Reinsalu, who said:
The most powerful sanction that the West can apply to Russia is the abolition of the Lukashenka regime in Belarus. To liquidate Lukashenka's regime means to liquidate the Union State — it means to win both wars: the war for Ukraine and the war for Belarus.”