"It is not just recorded, it continues," Ryzhenkov said when asked whether Belarus has noticed Western interference ahead of its 2025 presidential election.
He pointed out that the impermissibility of interference in the internal affairs of other countries is directly laid out in the fundamental documents of the United Nations.
The situation is an example of how the United Nations’ embedded mechanisms do not work, Ryzhenkov said.
Western interference in Belarus’ internal affairs ahead of the country’s 2025 presidential election is intended to create a cordon sanitaire against Russia, Maxim Ryzhenkov said.
"In fact, we understand that certain people are behind the interests of the West, whom they have raised, taught and desire to bring to power in Belarus, the same way they brought them to power in many post-Soviet countries," Ryzhenkov said in an interview. "That’s what they want here… to simply give tasks to these people so that they implement that foreign policy, domestic policy, and socio-economic policy in a way that benefits the West today, and above all, to create a further cordon sanitaire against the Russian Federation."
Belarus has already recorded Western interference in its internal affairs ahead of its 2025 presidential election, Ryzhenkov also said.
Some Western analysts and politicians are already alleging that Belarus’ elections will go poorly, he also said.
However, it is nonsense to claim that Belarusian citizens do not have access to media and cannot express their opinions, Ryzhenkov said.
Belarus will use a wide range of tools for international observation of the presidential elections in the country, including through the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Ryzhenkov said.
"We plan to use a broad range of instruments for international observation through all specialized organizations that are constructively and objectively set to study the issues that observers encounter in the countries where they conduct observations," Ryzhenkov said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly High-level Week ending in New York.
The minister said Minsk expects the arrival, in particular, of observation missions from the CIS, SCO, and other organizations and centers addressing the issue, as well as central election commissions of countries from all over the world.
Minsk does not need pre-trained Western election observers who will intentionally look for mistakes, Maxim Ryzhenkov.
"That is, they concentrated their attention only on us. And you know, when observers arrive, trained by the relevant countries, who select people, these are primarily representatives of Western countries, they are already configured accordingly, they have already undergone the appropriate 'breaking-in' in their countries - how, what to look at," Ryzhenkov said.
As a rule, he added, these are largely representatives of the ministries of foreign affairs, and some state organizations of these countries that send them.
"When the organization itself has been given some narratives that need to be seen or somehow reflected in Belarus, why do we need such observation?" Ryzhenkov said.
The presidential elections in Belarus will take place no later than July 20, 2025.