“Don’t touch the Russian language, we fought together” - President of Belarus
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko criticized road services for translating road signs into Belarusian.
“I’m driving along the presidential highway. They put up a sign: “Knock out the tough regime.” As a Belarusian, I understand what the author wanted to say. 50% of the population will understand what the road worker requires, but the rest will only understand the “regime”. Who will understand that this is a high-speed regime, and not Lukashenka’s dictatorship?” Lukashenko said today during his address to the people.
According to him, he has recently received complaints not only from Russians, but also from Belarusians about changing signs.
“This linguistic wave has started again. I asked you: don’t raise these questions at all. It is closed in Belarus. We have two official languages - Russian and Belarusian. Not Ukrainian, not Russian - Russian, into which we put our souls. We fought together with the Russian people. If someone wants to lose their mind, they will lose their Russian language. If he wants to lose his heart, he will lose the Belarusian language,” Lukashenko said.
Speaking at a joint meeting of the boards of the ministries of culture of Russia and Belarus, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky asked his Belarusian colleague Yuri Bondar to pay special attention to the protection of the Russian language. Medinsky explained his request by saying that more and more information is becoming available about the disappearance of the Russian language in Belarus.
"Don't touch the Russian language, we fought together" – President of Belarus