Belarus and Russia to discuss cooperation in Sochi today

7 февраля 2020
It is planned that there will be a meeting between Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin. Our President arrived for a working visit to the Russian Federation. 

At the beginning of the week, our President, speaking of the upcoming Sochi talks, put it this way: “a certain moment of truth has arrived”. It is clear why it is said that way. There is a block of questions between Minsk and Moscow on which the final solutions must be found. This, of course, is primarily about the supply of hydrocarbons. When announcing the visit, Alexander Lukashenko made a small but important remark. Belarus has built warm and friendly relations with the Russians, so it wants to build them in the future, despite all the contradictions.

The previous year was very busy in contacts between the leaders of Belarus and Russia, only in December they  met twice in Sochi and St. Petersburg. Disagreements over hydrocarbons have arisen regularly in recent years, despite seemingly concrete mutual obligations. Fortunately, Union-wide interests always prevailed over narrowly corporate ones.

 For 2 decades of allied relations, Minsk and Moscow managed to find a common language. Experts believe: today the fate of integration and the future of the Union State depends on it.

Andrei Savinykh Chairman of the Standing Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus: “This meeting is of fundamental importance, but apart from resolving the existing energy problems, I’m sure that it will also determine the path of integration development of our countries for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, or maybe forever. The main question that this meeting can answer is whether the Eurasian Economic Union will remain primarily a union of raw-material powers, or it will become attractive to processing countries such as the Republic of Belarus. The answer to this question, of course, is fundamental.”