MINSK, October 14. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday that the Commonwealth of Independent States should brace for a wide variety of provocations along the entire perimeter border. The strength of all CIS member-states will be put to test, he warned.
"I believe that everyone here understands that the Western strategists’ real aims are much broader - to divide the Eurasian space into sectors of influence and to use our countries as raw materials and industrial backyards," Lukashenko said at a meeting of the CIS heads of state on Friday, the BelTA news agency reports.
"We should brace for a wide variety of provocations along the entire perimeter of the CIS," he stated.
In his opinion, the events in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have become convincing and illustrative lessons. He pointed out that Russia and Belarus were currently at the forefront of economic and financial attacks.
"Unfortunately, what we have been talking about for many years has materialized. It has become a reality. A real hybrid war has been unleashed against all of us," he explained. "Ukraine is merely a pretext. Certain countries have hatched revanchist plans for a long time, as you know, from the first days after the victory in the Great Patriotic War, or maybe even since earlier dates."
Speaking about the economic situation, Lukashenko noted that it was very dramatic.
"Ill-conceived actions by individual governments, primarily the West, caused tangible damage to the global economy. In Belarus and Russia everybody was able to see examples of how traditional markets for national goods and purchases of critical imports can suddenly be closed, and the well-established procedures of interstate settlements, sources of investment and much more suddenly turn unavailable," Lukashenko said.
He is certain that the CIS countries have everything they need to minimize their vulnerability "to global upheavals and unfriendly steps of aggressively minded states."
"These opportunities should be used skillfully enough," he added.