Russian ambassador lambasted by Belarusian Foreign Ministry over interview

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus has responded to a long interview by Russian Ambassador Mikhail Babich with ria.ru. The correspondent of this news agency asked the Belarusian MFA Information and Digital Diplomacy Department Head Anatol Hlaz to comment on Babich’s statements. Here is the answer of Mr Hlaz.

“Honestly, I don't always have enough time to read all the interviews of Mikhail Babich,” says Mr Hlaz. “Fortunately, they are all similar, and the mentor line of reasoning does not change much. Therefore, without going deep into it, I can say for sure that the relations between our countries and the people of [Belarus and Russia] are much deeper and more comprehensive than an artificial, fraudulent set of numbers that the Russian diplomat regularly brandishes. But it is his right to set the bar for himself, which turns him into a bookkeeper or budding accountant. "

In the interview, Mikhail Babich gave a lot of numbers. Among other things, he noted that the increase in the growth of Belarusian exports to the EU countries without petroleum products produced from Russian oil and Russian coal was not so significant. “But for the beauty of numbers, you can leave everything as it is,” Babich said. “We welcome, without irony, any success of our friends.”

“I would like to recommend that he devote myself to the specificity of the host country, get acquainted with its history and show some respect,” said the representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry. “Sometimes this style of work gives a much better result than assuming the role of adept "public diplomacy" which is completely uncharacteristic for a serious Russian diplomatic school does".

Mikhail Babich, a former paratrooper, secret service officer and later a federal official, was appointed ambassador to Belarus in August 2018. Thus, he has been in our country for more than half a year already.

“In my opinion, in the short time he has been working in Belarus, he simply has not understood the difference between a federal district and an independent state,” says Anatoly Hlaz. “I think in the near future our partners will be given detailed answers to the statements of the ambassador.”