Lukashenko met with Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Volodin
The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has held a meeting today with Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, who arrived in Belarus on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate in celebrations dedicated to Independence Day and the 80th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation from Nazi invaders
First of all, Aleksandr Lukashenko conveyed his gratitude to the Russian leader for Russia being represented at our holiday by a high state delegation headed by State Duma Chairman.
“While preparing for this meeting, I thought that we have not officially met in this way, although we have known each other, it seems to me, for half a century,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.
“Rarely, actually,” Vyacheslav Volodin smiled.
“This suggests you have to visit Minsk more often,” the President added. “We’ll always be glad to see you.”
The Head of State noted that he was very closely watching Vyacheslav Volodin’s work of Head of the State Duma, ‘especially when you work in your district’, “You’ve done a lot in your district. When I see you there, I remember my parliamentary work, how I had to deal with exactly the same issues and settle the same problems. Therefore, for me personally, you are an absolutely understandable, open person. I always support you in the direction in which you move towards people, towards those who have elected you. You don’t forget about them. It is very important. If the Chairman of our House of Representatives is the same, we can only be happy. Therefore, do not be greedy, pass on your experience.”
The President addressed the guest with a request, “I ask you to give my best wishes to Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], even though we will see each other in the near future. We have a lot of problems that we need to discuss with him. I will briefly outline them in our today’s conversation. We have a lot of questions nowadays, and the general issues that we need to solve.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko expressed confidence that Vyacheslav Volodin is immersed in the current agenda, “I think you are in touch with the situation and see what is happening around Belarus. They just can’t wait to drag us into some kind of disputes in order to pull us apart along this border, make our resistance impossible and escalate to such an extent that the whole world will shudder. Therefore, the situation is very serious, and we should not feel complacent in any case. But I think Igor Petrovich [Igor Petrovich Sergeyenko, the Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus] will tell you everything in detail, because he was deeply immersed in solving these problems before and now.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko thanked Vyacheslav Volodin on the eve of Independence Day, “Thank you for coming. You will stay with us at the event and look at it from the point of view of our common standards that once existed. How far have we gone from them? I think you’ll enjoy it; we haven’t gone anywhere. Belarus has always been committed to what our ancestors did. You will not find a single monument in Belarus in ruined or desperate condition, even in the smallest village.”
The President said that more than once he unexpectedly visited the memorable places where agricultural enterprises once erected monuments: everything is in order.
“They are simple, but people remember those times, they know where we are from, they honour the memory of those who brought us this life. It may be difficult, but we live. Unfortunately, many of them have already passed away. Therefore, we honour this memory. It does not matter to us whether this is the battle of Bagration, near Rzhev, near Moscow, Stalingrad, on the Kursk Bulge or on the Dnieper. It doesn’t make any difference to us. It was our Soviet people who fought. We honour this and educate our youngsters in this regard,” the Belarusian leader underlined.
