Lukashenko: Belarus Remains a Soviet Republic

Alexander Lukashenko has been expressing his views on the end of the Soviet Union. Via Telegraf.by [my tr.]:

In an interview for the NTV television channel apropos of the anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the reasons for its collapse were not economic ones. In the President’s view, the main reason for the collapse of the USSR was the “unrestrained nature” of authority, the unlimited wealth which “corrupted everyone inside the country”. The President, however, considers that Belarus has remained a Soviet republic. “Belarus was a very Soviet republic. It remains in essence Soviet even now… Not only because the Soviets have been preserved… A Soviet republic means an international republic, which carries out an appropriate social policy and so on. Belarus was built to live in a United Soviet Union,” the Belarusian President considers.

…the Belorussian President also expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the agreement on the dissolution of the USSR. “Yeltsin was President. He could sign things over there… But our president did not have that right. That document should have been thoroughly analyzed and studied…”