MINSK. Aug 9 (Interfax) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said he personally issued the command to restore order during the protests that followed the presidential election in 2020.
"I gave all the orders. Don't look for perpetrators. I gave the order to put everyone in their place. Without shooting. But they broke into Independence Palace as I was leaving with an assault rifle accompanied by my child, if they'd only crossed the line, then no one would have stopped us," Lukashenko said at a meeting with journalists, public figures, experts, and members of the press on Monday.
Lukashenko also said that the protests were anything but peaceful. "What peaceful protests? Go look even now at the images on the Internet... Is that peace? Shivs, knives, explosives - what were those brought there for? For peaceful actions? There wasn't a whiff of peaceful action," he said.
There never have been and never will be repressions in a post-election Belarus, Lukashenko said.
"There were no repressions, and there will be no repressions in my country, because I don't need that, it's bad for me. I didn't shoot myself in the foot, let alone the head. To start repressions in Belarus [would be] like shooting yourself," he said.
Belarus held a presidential election one year ago today, on August 9. The winner was Lukashenko, the country's president since 1994. The election results prompted nationwide mass protests which lasted over six months.