While making personnel decisions on 20 October, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko spoke about the ongoing social and political developments in the country, BelTA has learned.

“Today we need reliable people, loyal to the state, so that nobody will be able to tear us apart and divide. You probably felt it like no one else working there, away from the center, in the west,” the president said addressing Leonid Martynyuk who was appointed Aide to the President – Inspector for Mogilev Oblast. Before the appointment he led the Bereza District Executive Committee of Brest Oblast. “Some are now eyeing not just a piece of Belarus, but the entire country. What are we going to do? Where will we be? We have never thought before that in addition to economy we would have to deal with ideology, communicate with people, we need to show them what is going on. It is not relevant for you because the province is a far cry from Minsk,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“When you come to the regions, you see people working, earning money and producing food, including for Minskers. However, some people here, though they are a minority, do not understand what a state is and how resolutely we will support this state,” the Belarusian leader said.

In this regard, Aleksandr Lukashenko mentioned the mass events that took place in Minsk a day before. “Yesterday I watched the military [retired members of the law enforcement agencies took part in a rally in Minsk]. It clearly showed who is worth what. Well, we didn't call them to Independence Square. It was not us. They [the organizers of the protest] called the Soviet-Afghan War veterans, people from the Union of Officers, your former colleagues from the KGB [the president addressed Igor Sergeyenko who used to be a senior KGB official], from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Well, they called, and people came and showed what they believed it by bringing the state symbols. They came, held these flags aloft, expressed their opinion,” the head of state said.

He also emphasized that not a single military man took the opposite side under the collaborationist flags.