Lukashenko: US Was Founded by Freedom-Loving Bandits

In a speech at the Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told students that the people who traveled across the ocean to found the United States were “freedom-loving bandits.”

According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, when describing the colonists from Europe who had founded the United States, the Belarusian president stated, “They did not care to know about anything other than their wallets, where to go to the bank, to go and build a house and its surroundings.”

Lukashenko also said that if Europe and the U.S. criticize his actions, it could only mean that he had chosen the right path. He said, “This is one of the tenets of my presidential life and my work criteria. When they trample me with their feet and throw sticks at me, I keep going and think, ‘we’re doing the right thing.’ If they start to praise, then I think, ‘I went wrong somewhere.’”

Note that this is not the first statement Lukashenko addressed to the American politicians. Thus, in early October, he discussed his attitude toward “exceptionalism politics,” which U.S. President Barack Obama promotes among Americans.

Lukashenko said, “I think it’s, to put it mildly, counterproductive. It’s very bad. And anyway, Obama amazes me. Until very recently, black people in America were slaves. And now they claim some kind of exceptionalism. I never thought that a man who had come from such a low class would be able to use such rhetoric in the world. This is unacceptable, it is extremely dangerous.”

Meanwhile, he described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a “very intelligent and decent man.”