What Lukashenko told the Minsk rally on 16 August 2020
A look back at a defiant speech in Independence Square, an appeal to Moscow and calls for more protests during the Belarusian unrest.
What did Alexander Lukashenko say to the crowd in Minsk on 16 August 2020? Speaking in Independence Square amid the 2020 Belarusian protests, he told supporters that Belarus would "die as a state" if new elections were held, and he accused NATO of "massing on the border".
Opposition critics said most of those at the rally had been coerced into attending and had been bussed in from other parts of the country.
The appeal to Moscow
The rally followed a move made a day earlier. On 15 August 2020, Lukashenko, then president of Belarus, issued an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he considered the protests "not a threat to just Belarus anymore". Statements from both sides contained a pointed reference to the Union State between the two countries.
On the same day, opposition candidate leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was in exile in Lithuania, called for more protests.
Elsewhere in the region and beyond
The security picture in Europe was also shifting on 15 August 2020. In Warsaw, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak signed an agreement to redeploy about 1,000 U.S. troops from Germany to Poland, bringing the total there to 5,500. The agreement also allowed for a potential increase to 20,000 U.S. troops if Poland were under threat.
On 14 August 2020, the UN Security Council rejected a U.S. bid to extend the global arms embargo on Iran indefinitely. Only the Dominican Republic backed the resolution, far short of the nine votes required. Eleven of the 15 members, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, abstained, while Russia and China opposed the extension without needing to use their vetoes.
