Mikhail Leontyev: Lukashenka is a Somali pirate

A Russian propagandist calls the arrest of Uralkali CEO in Minsk “piggery and outrage”.

Economist Mikhail Leontyev, the editor-in-chief of Odnako magazine, thinks “such things cannot be forgiven.”

Following statements by Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev and first deputy PM Igor Shuvalov, Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at Russia's Federation Council, made a harsh remark. He said Minsk had violated “all rules” by arresting the businessman. Economist Mikail Leontyev, an expert at the National News Service and editor of Odnako magazine, is confident that Russia has all grounds to apply “special tools” to Belarus.

”Such things cannot be forgiven,” the expert says. “If Russia allows to blackmail it, it will be totally unacceptable. I think different kinds of tools must be applied to Lukashenka. Practice shows that he can be educated and can learn from serious leverage. We remember his acrobatic stunts, but it always ended well. He is a Somali pirate. The head of state doesn't have the right to descent to such a low level all the more he is our ally and we must be ashamed for him. We need to correct his behaviour as soon as possible to be not ashamed for him,” the editor of Odnako magazine told the National News Service.

“Belarus behaved in a very strange way. I'd like not to comment on their business policy, but the Belarusian side cancelled the conditions of the shareholders' agreement by a presidential decree. In this case conditions of the shareholders' agreement do not work,” Mikhail Leontyev says.

“They gave legal grounds to Kerimov and his institutions to behave in the way they behaved. They tried to force them to work under the conditions they wanted. These conditions may be the fairest and profitable for the union state, mankind and God, but no one has the right to force private institutions to cooperate in a modern world. All other actions are piggery and outrage. I have tender feelings towards the union state and I am rather lenient towards Lukashenka, but the arrest of Baumgertner is beyond good and evil,” Leontyev said.

Photo: kp.ru