The foreign Ministry of Belarus summoned the Minister-counselor of the Russian Embassy Vadim Gusev, to tell him an official protest. The reason for the discontent of the Belarusian side began ambiguous statements of the Director of the Russian Institute for strategic studies (RISS) Leonid Reshetnikov. The scandal erupted after a video of his performance appeared on the Internet.

The foreign Ministry of Belarus stressed that the statements of Reshetnikov do not correspond to the strategic character of relations between Moscow and Minsk. For this reason, Belarusian diplomats expressed Moscow’s official protest, stating that the words of the scientist are "unreasonable" and "totally unacceptable". 

"It was pointed out that they contradict the strategic nature of Russian-Belarusian relations, and the principles enshrined in the bilateral and multilateral documents that underpin the cooperation between our brotherly countries: respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The Director of RISS questioned the existence of an independent Belarus, calling the Republic “the historical part of the great Russia”. In addition, the Russian scientist extremely undiplomatically spoke about the Belarusian language. According to him, it was established in 1926 on the orders of the Soviet Union Communist party.