Leader accuses NATO of stoking protest movement

MINSK, Belarus — Belarus’ authoritarian leader accused NATO on Friday of hatching aggressive plans and threatened neighbors Lithuania and Poland with countersanctions as he sought to shore up his 26year rule amid weeks of demonstrations against his reelection in a vote the opposition says was rigged.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the nation in Eastern Europe with an iron fist since 1994, blamed the West for fomenting demonstrations in Belarus in hopes of turning it into a “bridgehead against Russia.”

“They want to topple this government and replace it with another one that would ask a foreign country to send troops in support,” he said. “They want our market to sell their products.”

NATO SecretaryGeneral Jens Stoltenberg said this week that the Belarusian leader tries to conjure up the image of outside forces threatening Belarus as an excuse for his crackdown on the opposition, which has seen hundreds of protesters beaten by police.

In addition, the idea that Belarus’ ailing Sovietstyle economy would be seen as a beacon for exporters seems to defy current economic realities. Protests have been fueled by growing weariness about Lukashenko’s rule, his cavalier dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic and a bruising economic fallout from the outbreak in a country where living standards were already sinking.

The 65yearold leader threatened to retaliate against neighbors Poland and Lithuania, which pushed strongly for the European Union’s sanctions against his government. Lithuania also hosted the main opposition challenger in the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who moved there after the election, pressured by Belarusian authorities.

Lukashenko said Belarus would strike back by halting imports through Lithuanian ports and force its western neighbors to use longer routes via the Baltics and the Black Sea in their trade with Russia and China.

“Let’s us see who will get scared first, we will show them sanctions,” he said. “I have ordered the government to divert all trade flows away from Lithuanian ports. They have grown spoiled, and now we will show them their place.”

Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis said that if Lukashenko fulfills his threat it will mostly hurt Belarus and its people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that he stands ready to send police into Belarus if protests there turn violent but sees no such need yet.

On Friday, hundreds of opposition supporters again formed “chains of solidarity” across Minsk as the protests entered their 20th day.