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.

A monument to Alexander Mamkin is unveiled in Minsk's Polotsk Park on June 25 as part of the Forum of Regions programme. In the earlier BELTA meeting excerpt, Matviyenko announces that she will attend the unveiling that day and explains Mamkin's rescue of orphanage children. The later Vremya report states that she participated in the unveiling and recounts the rescue. The earlier preview alone does not show or establish a completed ceremony.