The Kremlin has no doubt that at the appropriate time the presidents of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, will visit Crimea together, said a spokesman for Russian leader Dmitry Peshkov, who described the peninsula as “Russian territory” by Lukashenko.
“Obviously now in Crimea is not the best time for such trips,” said Peskov, adding that “I have no doubt that at the right time the two presidents will agree and visit Crimea.” and at present no particular city on the peninsula is considered, but a journey in general.
“Of course, a very important statement was made by President Lukashenko that, in the view of the Belarusian side, Crimea is de facto and de jure Russian,” the Kremlin spokesman said, referring to the Belarusian president’s statement in an extensive interview. on Russian state television, where he claimed that “everyone understood that Crimea was de facto Russian and after the 2014 referendum it became de jure” and added that he has no disagreement with V. Putin, from whom he has asked three times to “guide” him to the peninsula and they have already jointly agreed that they will make this trip in due time.
Reacting to Lukashenko’s statements, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said his country would evaluate Lukashenko’s actions, not his words, and that “if Belarus recognizes Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea, it will “Ukraine-Belarus, we will proceed with a generalized reaction”, according to the Ukrinform agency.
Taking another step towards a rift with Ukraine, the Belarusian president said he would “support Moscow in the event of a Ukrainian attack” and that it would be “in close economic, legal and political relations with Russia”, claiming that it would never will support the “nationalists, who took power in Kiev”, but also that it will do everything “so that Ukraine becomes ours, because Ukraine is ours, the people there are ours”, without specifying to whom exactly what it means and what exactly it means when it uses possessive pronouns and states that “it is not about emotions, but about my firm belief”.
Belarus does not need to pass any special laws recognizing Crimea as “Russian,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, commenting with applause on the Belarusian president’s remarks.
The declaration of Crimea as Russian territory based on the referendum of March 2014 and the 96.77% of voters who voted, according to the Russian administration, in favor of this prospect, is not recognized by the majority of countries and all international organizations, while denounced as a Russian attack by Kiev, which considers the Crimean peninsula a temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine.
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