About the Ambassador's meeting with the Editor-in-Chief of “Helsingin Sanomat”

On 6 April 2023, Ambassador of Belarus to Finland Aleksei Samosuev met with the acting editor-in-chief of Finland's largest newspaper «Helsingin Sanomat», Antero Mukka.

The interview focused on regional security issues, including the situation in Ukraine, the state of the Belarusian economy, normalization of relations with the EU and work with Belarusian civil society.

Ambassador Samosuev said, in particular, that all countries of the continent, including Finland, which two days ago became the 31st member of the North Atlantic Alliance, and Belarus' neighbours, such as Poland, which intends to build up its border areas with new military units, have now “had their hand” in changing the regional security system. The Ambassador emphasized that direct involvement of Belarusian troops in special operations in Ukraine was not in the interests of either Belarus or Russia, which is strong enough to act on its own.

Answering the question about Belarus' growing dependence on Russia and China, A.Samosuev stressed that it is mostly interdependence, and no country in the world is free from it, including Finland, which is dependent, for instance, on both the EU (at least in the financial sector) and its newly acquired NATO partners (in the security sector).

A.Samosuev also stated that in no European country can individuals who receive foreign funding for political activities, call for the destruction of national economies and international relations and commit criminal acts be considered “civil society” and “opposition”; no one likes traitors. It is therefore not worth collaborating with (and encouraging us to do so) individuals with whom Finns would not want to do business in their own country.

Regarding last Sunday's national parliamentary elections in Finland, the Ambassador emphasized that the main problem of the international practice of elections in the OSCE area was the lack of unified approaches and their inconsistent application, which gave grounds for double standards to the western and eastern OSCE states.

The Ambassador noted that Belarus has no objections to normalisation of relations with the EU and wants to be friends with its economically strong neighbours, but at the moment «the ball is in the EU's court».

The interlocutors agreed on further contacts.

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