Speaking at an event being held to mark the 80th anniversary of the Third Reich’s invasion of the Soviet Union, veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko raged about the West’s response to the incident. Between a quarter and a third of Belarusians are estimated to have died during WWII, the worst proportionate death toll of any country.

Lukashenko, who has faced long-running protests after declaring victory in last year’s disputed presidential election, claimed that sanctions imposed since were part of the West’s “hybrid war” against the nation.

“We did not expect Germany’s participation in this collective conspiracy,” he said. “From those whose ancestors destroyed not only every third Belarusian, but also millions of unborn children in the Great Patriotic War.” He argued that Germany’s foreign policy should be dictated by remorse for WWII, rather than seeking confrontation.

ALSO ON RT.COM‘Bomb scare’ forces Ryanair jet to make emergency landing in Belarus, authorities detain wanted editor of banned Telegram channelFocusing his ire on Berlin’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, who this week called for additional economic sanctions to be imposed, Lukashenko asked “Who are you? A repentant German … or the heir of the Nazis?”

Belarus was rocked by demonstrations in the wake of last August’s election, which the opposition and many international observers say was rigged. Tens of thousands took to the streets to demand a fresh vote, but they were met with a police crackdown, tear gas, and mass arrests.

Last month, a Ryanair plane flying between Athens and Vilnius was instructed to land in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Once on the ground, authorities arrested the editor of an opposition Telegram channel banned in the country, Roman Protasevich, and his Russian-citizen girlfriend, activist Sophia Sapega.

Western governments have blasted the move as “state-sponsored piracy,” and the EU has since begun barring Belarus’ national carrier, Belavia, from its airspace. A number of Western carriers now also use routes that circumnavigate the Eastern European country, while Brussels is reportedly mulling further sanctions.

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“I had been opposed to Nord Stream 2 from the beginning, but it was almost completed by the time I took office,” Joe Biden told reporters in Washington, on Tuesday. “To go ahead and impose sanctions now, I think is counterproductive in terms of our European relations.”

The first statement echoed the explanation given to reporters by White House press secretary Jen Psaki last week, while the second was the exact reasoning described by the State Department for waiving sanctions against the company building the pipeline and its CEO.

Biden’s statement came on the same day that the White House and the Kremlin confirmed that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a bilateral summit on June 16 in Geneva. A White House statement said the Biden administration will seek to “restore predictability and stability to the US-Russia relationship.”

ALSO ON RT.COMMuch anticipated first presidential summit between Putin & Biden will take place in neutral Swiss city of Geneva, on June 16The Nord Stream 2 project was just one of several fronts on which the two nations have been clashing. The main US objection to the undersea pipeline is that it will further lessen Kiev’s leverage over Moscow by providing another gas conduit to Germany that doesn’t run through Ukraine. With only about 100 kilometers of pipeline left to lay as of earlier this month, the project may be completed before Germany’s September 26 election.

The Biden administration apparently will no longer try to be an impediment to that timeline, after waiving sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, last week. The US State Department said that although the company and Warnig were involved in sanctionable activity under US law, it was waiving penalties for national security reasons. However, the Treasury Department has sanctioned 13 Russian ships and three entities – including a maritime rescue service – for their part in building the pipeline.

ALSO ON RT.COMMore sanctions as US slaps penalties on 13 Russian ships & a RESCUE service over roles in preparing Nord Stream 2 gas pipelineThe US has sought to ensure that Ukraine’s profits from transit fees for Russian gas are maintained, while pressuring Europeans to buy the far more expensive US-produced liquefied natural gas. Russia already supplies around 40% of European Union gas imports, and it has reduced the share of those shipments that transit through Ukraine.

Biden hinted at working with European allies on protecting Western interests to the extent possible. “I hope we can work on how they handle it from this point on,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel applauded Washington’s decision to drop some Nord Stream 2 sanctions and said she’ll discuss the project with Biden at the G-7 summit next month in the UK.

ALSO ON RT.COMPsaki raises white flag, admits US had no way of stopping Nord Stream 2 that was ‘95% complete’ alreadyThink your friends would be interested? Share this story!

Buchenwald was one of the longest-operating and largest facilities, where people deemed undesirable by the Nazi government were worked to death or simply killed. The largest group at the concentration camp were Soviet prisoners of war and civilians kidnapped as slaves in Nazi-occupied parts of the Soviet Union, Steinmeier reminded the nation on Saturday. An estimated 8,000 Soviet POWs and civilians were executed at the camp.

“The Soviet prisoners of war had long been a forgotten group of victims. It is therefore right that we are now paying more attention to them, especially this year,” which marks the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the German president said.

ALSO ON RT.COMAuthorities at former Nazi German concentration camp Buchenwald warn revelers against sledding over MASS GRAVESSlavic peoples such as the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belarusians were deemed unfit to live in the racially pure world the Nazis were trying to bring into existence. “They were not considered part of humanity, no more than the Jews or the Roma. They were meant to be destroyed, through work, starvation, or both,” the president said.

The concentration camp was ultimately captured by the Allied forces on April 12, 1945. An estimated 280,000 prisoners passed through it or its sub-camps scattered across Germany, and were forced to contribute their labor to the Nazi war effort and civilian economy.

ALSO ON RT.COMHistorical inaccuracy and ‘human chess’ – Auschwitz Memorial slams Amazon’s Nazi-hunting seriesMore than 50,000 of them died from various causes, mostly malnutrition and disease, but thousands of inmates were executed as part of the Nazis’ extermination policies. Buchenwald had a former stable kitted out as a medical room, for instance, where victims were instructed to stand next to a device at a wall, they presumed to measure their height. However, an executioner would then shoot them in the back of the neck through a hidden opening in the wall.

In his speech, Steinmeier called on Germans to remember how such atrocities could happen right next to the city of Weimar, a German cultural hub, with the local population oblivious or willingly turning a blind eye. Forgetting that such things did happen means forgetting that they can happen again, he warned.

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