MINSK. June 1 (Interfax) - The West is plotting violent regime change in Belarus, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.
"Speaking of Belarus, I can say that members of illegal armed units are being trained in Poland, Lithuania and, unfortunately, Ukraine, and attempts are being made to create extremist sleeper cells inside this country. This is proven by recent facts," Lukashenko told participants in the 52nd meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Security and Special Service Chiefs in Minsk on Thursday, as quoted by the Belarusian state-run news agency BelTA.
"This means they are plotting violent regime change here. We can see that. We will not allow that to happen," Lukashenko said.
"The military and political situation around the CIS continues to worsen. We need to understand that large actors around us, Russia, Belarus and the Central Asian countries, are quietly trying to pull us apart. We must not allow that to happen," the presidential press service quoted Lukashenko as saying.
"We see the increasing militarization of NATO member states, an unprecedented concentration of their forces near our common territory, and attempts to start conflicts," Lukashenko said.
Information-based and psychological pressure and the spread of deliberately false information currently represent a key threat, he said.
"Such actions aim to undermine our countries' standing on the world stage. False information often leads to dangerous, aggressive actions," Lukashenko said.
The West's de facto monopoly over information, including its control of the Internet, the main social networks and international media outlets, contribute to this, he said.