General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MINSK, Belarus — Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, but he said he didn’t expect the 10-week-old conflict to “drag on this way.”
He also spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine but wouldn’t say if Russian President Vladimir Putin had plans to launch such a strike.
Lukashenko said Moscow, which launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 — partly from his territory — had to act because Kyiv was “provoking Russia.”
“But I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it,” he said in the nearly 90-minute interview at Independence Palace in Minsk. “I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on.”
Lukashenko’s support of the war has prompted international criticism and sanctions against Minsk. Some Russian troops were sent from Belarusian territory into Ukraine, and Lukashenko has publicly stood by his longtime ally, who has pumped billions of dollars into shoring up his Soviet-style, state-controlled economy with cheap energy and loans.
But speaking to the AP, Lukashenko said he and his country stand for peace and repeatedly called for the end of the “war” — a term the Kremlin refuses to use, calling the invasion a “special military operation” instead.
“We categorically do not accept any war. We have done and are doing everything now so that there isn’t a war. Thanks to yours truly, me that is, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have begun,” he said.
Lukashenko said using nuclear weapons in Ukraine was “unacceptable because it’s right next to us — we are not across the ocean like the United States.”
“It is also unacceptable because it might knock our terrestrial ball flying off the orbit to who knows where,” he said. “Whether or not Russia is capable of that — is a question you need to ask the Russian leadership.”
Russia “can’t by definition lose this war,” Lukashenko said, noting that Belarus is the only country standing by Moscow, while “as many as 50 states have joined forces” on Ukraine’s side.
He added that Putin isn’t seeking a direct conflict with NATO, and the West should ensure that one doesn’t happen.
“He most likely does not want a global confrontation with NATO. Use it. Use it and do everything for that not to happen. Otherwise, even if Putin doesn’t want it, the military will react,” the Belarusian leader warned.
The 67-year-old Lukashenko called Putin his “big brother” and said the Russian leader doesn’t have “closer, more open or friendlier relations with any of the world leaders other than the president of Belarus.”
Their relationship has been particularly close recently but was rocky in earlier years. Before a disputed 2020 election sparked mass protests and a domestic crackdown by Lukashenko, he often accused the Kremlin of trying to force him to relinquish control of prized economic assets and abandon his country’s independence.
Faced with tough economic sanctions after he brutally suppressed the protests, the Belarusian leader started emphasizing a need to jointly counter Western pressure and met with Putin regularly, stressing their close ties.
Still, Lukashenko’s support of the invasion in Ukraine has stopped short of deploying his own troops in the conflict, and on Thursday he told AP that Minsk poses no threat to its neighbor, even as its military conducted drills this week.
“We do not threaten anyone and we are not going to threaten and will not do it. Moreover, we can’t threaten — we know who opposes us, so to unleash some kind of a conflict, some kind of war here … is absolutely not in the interests of the Belarusian state. So the West can sleep peacefully,” he said.
He blamed the West — especially Washington — for fueling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“The U.S. wants to seize the moment, tying its allies to itself, and drown Russia in the war with Ukraine. It’s their goal — to sort out Russia, and then China,” he said.
Lukashenko said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was taking orders from the United States.
“Today it’s not Zelenskyy who’s running Ukraine – no offense, that’s my point of view, maybe I’m wrong,” Lukashenko said, adding that if U.S. President Joe Biden said so, “everything will stop within a week.”
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
BERLIN (AP) — At least five people were killed Wednesday when a bus headed from Berlin to Switzerland came off a highway in eastern Germany and ended up on its side, authorities said.
ΒΟSTON - The newly-elected Metropolitan Iakovos of Mexico, who was enthroned on Saturday, March 16th at the Cathedral of Aghia Sophia in Mexico City, gave his first interview as Metropolitan to The National Herald, which he described as a "historic newspaper," one he has known since childhood, as have his close relatives.
BALTIMORE - Authorities have released the identities of the two people recovered from the water Wednesday morning at the site of the Baltimore bridge collapse.
ATHENS — Police in Greece clashed late Wednesday with Communist-backed demonstrators who tried to prevent a concert by U.
ATHENS – Greece recorded a huge improvement in the business environment rankings of The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) among 82 countries worldwide.