MINSK, May 24. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday, he will arrive in Moscow to attend a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council and a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, Lukashenka announced that he wants to discuss with Putin the unsettled issues in relations between Minsk and Moscow.
«As the government reports to me, well, there are almost no problems. I hardly believe in it. I see from the situation that there are still problems, some inconsistencies. Sometimes bureaucracy. Who is to blame for this? To meeting the day after tomorrow in Moscow, Russian President Putin and I could discuss and resolve those problems that should not be in our relations at all,» he said, without specifying what kind of issues he was talking about.
On the same day, the meeting was confirmed by the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov. “Yes, I can confirm. Indeed, since an event is planned within the framework of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, we expect Lukashenka to be in Moscow and the presidents will have the opportunity to talk,” he said.
Belarusian-Russian trade and economic relations have recently demonstrated a confident positive trend. Mutual trade in 2022 reached a historic high of $50 billion, and already in 2 months of 2023, the trade turnover amounted to $7.5 billion. According to the Prime Minister of Belarus, trade with Russia increased by 22% in the first quarter.
In November 2021, a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Belarus and Russia was held, a decree was signed on the main directions for implementing the provisions of the agreement on the creation of the Union State for 2021-2023. The document approves 28 union programs to deepen economic integration. In February, Lukashenka said that governments and relevant departments had already completed about 80% of the activities envisaged in the framework of the programs.
Military-technical cooperation is intensively developing within the framework of the Union State. Belarusian enterprises of the military industry in 2022 replaced imported equipment and components for the Russian industry by $43 million. In May, the Belarusian ambassador announced Minsk's intention to supply machine tools for the Russian concerns Kalashnikov, Almaz-Antey and Kupol. In the same month, Dmitry Pantus, Chairman of the State Military-Industrial Committee of Belarus, discussed with Alexander Potapov, Director General of NPK Uralvagonzavod JSC, promising areas of cooperation and increasing mutual deliveries.
In March, Putin said that Moscow and Minsk agreed that, without violating international obligations, they would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Putin explained that Russia is not transferring its nuclear weapons to Belarus, but is doing what the United States has been doing for a decade, since the Americans «teach their (allies) crews, their pilots to use this type of weapon if necessary.» According to him, the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus will be completed on July 1.
Lukashenko said that, if necessary, he could agree with Putin on the introduction of strategic nuclear weapons into the republic. Meanwhile, as of May, as Valentin Rybakov, Permanent Representative to the UN, said, there were no practical measures to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The Supreme Eurasian Economic Council is the supreme collegial body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU summit in 2023 will be held on May 24-25 in Moscow under the chairmanship of Putin. The second Eurasian Economic Forum will be timed to coincide with the council meeting.
The EAEU includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Observers — Uzbekistan and Cuba.
At the last summit in December in Bishkek, Lukashenka stated that there should be no barriers to trade within the EAEU, the union needs to develop a free trade zone with friendly countries. According to him, the EAEU countries are not ready to rush to form a single gas market, and these issues will be resolved on a bilateral basis until 2025.
Lukashenko said that it is necessary to improve the «circulatory system» of the EAEU, moving away from the dollar in calculations. In addition, the Belarusian president appealed to countries that, according to him, expect to «sit out» in the current conditions, with an appeal to «rally and act as a united front.»