Pavel Latushka in consultations with Matthias Lüttenberg, Commissioner for Eastern Europe of the German Foreign Ministry, discussed a possible reaction to the address by the so-called Foreign Minister of the Lukashenka regime, Vladzimir Makei.
The German Foreign Ministry is critical of the declarative statements made by representatives of the regime. It was noted that the regime was responsible for the mass repressions committed before the war in Belarus, as well as for complicity in the aggression against Ukraine.
Pavel Latushka separately drew the interlocutor’s attention to the need for the European Union to react to the ongoing and growing repression against the Belarusian civil society, detention of representatives of trade unions and activists who oppose the war in Ukraine. The German Foreign Ministry said that it had already taken appropriate actions via diplomatic channels in connection with the arrests of representatives of independent trade unions. The NAM head drew attention to the fact that the EU had reduced its attention to the issue of the regime’s responsibility for the ongoing repressions, as well as to the possibility to initiate additional sanctions against the Lukashenko regime.
The interlocutors agreed that the current actions of the Lukashenka regime, which provided the territory of Belarus to carry out aggression against Ukraine, as well as suppression of civil society in Belarus, posed a challenge to the preservation of the country’s independence.