MINSK, April 26 (Reuters) - Berating him as a "lousy" leader, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko tore into Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday after being left out of ceremonies commemorating the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Asked by journalists why he did not attend 25th anniversary events in Kyiv and Chernobyl, the autocratic Lukashenko said: "Ask Yanukovych that question, why was the Belarussian president not present at these events?
"You should ask them. Unfortunately, today’s leadership in Ukraine is rather lousy," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying during a tour of areas affected by radiation fall-out from Chernobyl in 1986.
"They are simply scoundrels. So I don’t want to talk about all those Barrosos, other bastards and … others," he said.
EU officials confirmed last month that Ukraine had been told European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso would not attend last week’s international donors’ conference on Chernobyl in Kyiv if Lukashenko was present.
The United States and the European Union have blacklisted Lukashenko because of a police crackdown on an opposition rally against his re-election on Dec. 19.
The Chernobyl reactor which exploded in 1986 is on Ukraine’s border with Belarus. Both republics were part of the Soviet Union at the time.
Prevailing winds blew much of the radiation debris immediately across Belarus, forcing authorities to evacuate many of the people then living in the border areas.
