Lukashenko and Matviyenko Regional ties and Ukraine

Jun 25

BELTA's complete published public excerpt shows Lukashenko welcoming Matviyenko and crediting regional contacts with preserving warm Russia–Belarus ties during difficult earlier years. He describes the Forum of Regions as yielding billions of rubles and concrete contracts, thanks her for supporting regional cooperation and likens its importance to security. He calls Russia and Belarus a shared homeland, predicts eventual restored relations and unity including Ukrainians, invokes family ties and an unspecified recent conversation with Zelenskyy's representatives, and says Belarus can be counted on. Matviyenko expresses sympathy over the attack on Belarusian children in Bryansk, blames the Kyiv authorities and calls it terrorism and a monstrous crime. She announces that she will attend the Mamkin monument unveiling in Minsk's Polotsk Park that day, credits him with volunteering for the war and seventy-four combat flights, recounts his evacuation of orphanage children and says he landed a burning aircraft with ten children aboard, all surviving, but died from severe burns. She uses that history to compare Nazi violence with the bus attack, says it cannot be forgiven and wishes the children a speedy recovery. She then thanks Lukashenko and Putin for supporting regional ties, which she calls the Union State's backbone. Predictions, responsibility claims, historical characterizations and the planned unveiling remain attributed; the recording does not show the ceremony or establish a peace agreement.

During the June 25 Minsk meeting with Matviyenko, Lukashenko calls Russia and Belarus a shared homeland and predicts that their peoples and Ukrainians will eventually remain together and restore relations. He invokes family graves in Ukraine, longstanding personal ties and an unspecified recent conversation with Zelenskyy's representatives, and says Belarus can be counted on in this regard. This is his prediction and assurance, not an agreed peace settlement, Ukrainian endorsement or a scheduled unification.