Talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting in Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow on 17 February.

The heads of state agreed on a new meeting during a telephone conversation on the evening of 5 February. Back then they discussed three blocks of issues of Belarus-Russia cooperation.

The first block concerned the general agenda of cooperation in economy, politics and security. In particular, the presidents discussed further actions within the framework of the Union State to ensure security of Belarus and Russia. The heads state scheduled a meeting to be held in the near future to discuss the implementation of the instructions given earlier. First of all, the instructions concerned import substitution and all the areas of anti-sanction cooperation. That was the second block of issues discussed by Aleksandr Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin over the phone. The third block deal with preparations for the Supreme State Council summit. The meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Union State is due to take place in February, and the Supreme State Council is tentatively scheduled for April and May. The meeting participants are expected to formalize the existing agreements and sign the relevant documents. The heads of state are set to discuss and clarify the entire range of current issues during their upcoming meeting.