Yury Hubarevich: More than million of citizens ready to dispute in arms Belarus’ independence

Belarusians are a courageous nation, and they have experience of glorious victories.

500 years ago the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania gained a victory over the army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. This event is known in history as the Battle of Vorsha (Orsha). And while it is a bragging right for a part of society, the government tries to hush up this date, referring to the fact that it’s hardly a good time for speaking about battles between the fraternal nations, camarade.biz writes.

The year 2014 has been announced the Year of the Battle of Vorsha at the state level in Lithuania, and official celebrations are held in many cities of Ukraine as well.

The situation is different in Belarus: Vorsha district executive committee banned public events to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Vorsha under a pretext that the application for holding the festival had been made incorrect.

The first deputy chairman of “For Freedom” movement Yury Hubarevich believes that the day of September 8, 1514 is “one of the most important dates for the history of Belarus, as it is connected with a success of Belarusians and other allied forces.”

“This battle turned the course of history around in some respect; it allowed Belarusian lands to breathe more freely. This victory is important not only for Belarus, it became a chapter in military history books, and is recognized as one of major battles in Europe,” he said.

As said by Hubarevich, today’s Belarusian authorities are trying to hush up the political aspect of the event. “They are saying that the Battle of Vorsha allegedly divides the fraternal Belarusian and Russian nations. But one should simply remember history, including the facts that not only friendship was between our nations. We are proud of the victory near Grunwald, and it does not influence the relations between Belarus and Western European countries in any way, though they were adversaries then,” he noted.

Hubarevich is convinced that it should be recognized at the state level that “Belarusians are a courageous nation, who have an experience of glorious victories. The present generation should be educated in the spirit of this victory, Belarusian military, those who serve in the army and study in military academies, should be taught history in its entirety.”

The events in Ukraine, Hubarevich believes, should prepare Belarusians for different scenarios of developments. “Unfortunately, not only Russian leadership, but the majority of the society is dominated by imperialist, aggressive, land-grabbing sentiments. Under the influence of propaganda people are going crazy I the literal sense, they think that military intervention and occupation of territory are acceptable in the modern world. Moreover, they are proud of that. Belarusians should be ready for any development of the situation. We have an independent country, we are proud of that, so we should be ready to defend it, and among other things, bearing arms,” he said.

The politician believes that the current government is ready to defend its own interests rather than independence. “Now they coincide with the interests of maintaining independence of Belarus. That is why we see that Lukashenka has adopted neutral attitude, he is not eager to join Russia, though he is its main ally formally. In this situation we shall support all moves, including the moves of the current government, which are aimed at real maintaining of independence,” he noted.

Hubarevich believes that Belarusians are ready to defend independence of their country bearing arms. “I think it is possible. Opinion polls held during the armed conflict in Ukraine, showed that about 14% of Belarusians are ready to fight for independence arms in hand. It is more than a million of people, quite a great number of people, for whom independence of the country is valuable. They understand that one should recourse to militant actions to defend sovereignty if it becomes necessary,” he said.