If the events of 2020 are repeated in Belarus, the Internet will shut down. This was announced by Alexander Lukashenko today, November 22, during a meeting with humanities students.
The Belarusian leader was asked about the shutdown of the Internet during the election period, as happened in 2020.
“If this happens again, we will shut it down completely… I will say frankly that this almost always, especially in the initial stages, was with my permission. When you have two problems, you start to weigh which is more important. Naturally, I saw further.” – said.
According to him, then there was a whole country at stake that needed to be held, and events developed in such a way that a war could break out in the country.
“Everything came from the Internet. First of all, the information about where and when to go came from Poland… I understood what we could end up with. We would have had a war worse than the one in Ukraine. If we had it, it would be more difficult.” – noted Lukashenko.
At the same time, he explained that his main task is to protect the country. That is why, according to him, Lukashenko walked with a machine gun; This is part of his powers.
“I knew that if I didn’t support the relevant people, NATO troops would be here. “They were already accused of this,” – says the Belarusian leader.
Lukashenko also noted that if the opposition took power, he would invite NATO troops into the country, prompting a response from Russia.
“The war would begin again in our territory. I understood all this. This is on one side of the scale. I saw that the Internet is actively used for this: to show routes, what to hit, what to break.” – he recalled and added that he closed the Internet so that foreign secret services would not control Belarusian society, and that is why he did it.
Recall that elections were held in Belarus in August 2020, the results of which caused massive unrest in the country. Belarusian authorities then limited Internet access.