Did Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko congratulate Hamas for its attack against Israel? No, that's not true: There has been no published official statement from Lukashenko in reaction to events in Israel and Gaza so far. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs condemned any form of aggression and said casualties among civilians were unacceptable.
The story appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) by romavign40n on October 10, 2023. The caption (translated into English from Russian by Lead Stories staff) reads:
Lukashenko congratulated Hamas. Palestine's victory is the victory of Moscow and Minsk
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Oct 13 05:48:39 2023 UTC)
The claim originated in an article written by Russia Today special editor Igor Molotov in the Belarusian newspaper Minsk Truth on October 7, 2023. In an article titled "Rise of the Brave: About Events in Palestine," Molotov wrote in support of the Hamas attack, calling it a "joint victory of Moscow and Minsk."
The post on TikTok claims that the article was written in a newspaper controlled by the government and therefore suggests that it represented the view of the president. The article was later deleted from the site but circulated online; this is what it looked like when it was initially published.
(Source: Telegram screenshot taken on Fri Oct 13 06:20:19 2023 UTC)
Presidential messages and statements are normally communicated by the state-run national news agency BeITA (Belarusian Telegraph Agency). To date, no announcement has been communicated from the president's office regarding the Hamas-Israel conflict.
