Lukashenko flew to Putin to complain about the West and ask for money

Alexander Lukashenko unexpectedly arrived in St. Petersburg this morning for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Liberal Russian media called the meeting “sudden” because it was not on the Russian president’s schedule.

However, Putin himself presented the summit as a planned event “after governments have worked, first of all, in the economic sphere.” Minsk also assured that the meeting in St. Petersburg was agreed upon by the presidents by telephone in early July, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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In the presence of journalists, Putin noted that, despite the sanctions and the pandemic, the Belarusian economy is showing good performance. In particular, the republic is servicing all loans; moreover, its external debt is decreasing.

Lukashenko admired the fact that Putin was so “immersed in the Belarusian economy”, and then began to complain about the machinations of the West, mentioning the recent attack on the house of the head of a local LDPR franchise.

“I informed you on some issues. And every day there is development. Individual terror against those people who spoke frankly - those who spoke for the state. Now they have already switched to deputies. And the scoundrels are choosing their time, attacking the home of one of the leaders among the deputies, the party, when the children are there. They are trying to put pressure, to intimidate,” said the Belarusian leader.

He admitted the error of his policies in recent years, which encouraged the work of various “disgusting” Western organizations and foundations in Belarus.

“Who here gave us democracy, but actually imposed it on us. And not democracy, but this terror. You must understand that we simply cannot do otherwise. It’s clear what they were doing. They were financed from outside. And we all thought: okay, this is democracy, let’s talk and cooperate. So we got the corresponding results,” Lukashenko said.

Regarding Western sanctions, he suggested to his Russian colleague “not to worry” and expressed confidence that the West would not be able to “put pressure on us.”

The presidents continued their conversation during lunch. It has already been announced that they will not make press statements following the negotiations.

Meanwhile, political scientists are building different versions of what the “sudden” meeting is connected with.

“Integration through the special services” with Minsk does not work, since Putin is forced to maintain such a high frequency of personal meetings with Lukashenko. Also, apparently, Putin still has not lost hope that in one of these meetings Lukashenko will finally “break down” and agree to the “deep integration” proposed by Moscow. The hopes of the young men are nourished...”, political scientist Maxim Zharov wrote in his Telegram channel.

His colleague, political scientist Andrei Suzdaltsev, is no less skeptical.

“The migration crisis created by Lukashenko is beginning to affect relations between Russia and the European Union, in addition, illegal migrants have appeared on Russian territory. Along the way, the Belarusian side is harassing Moscow with demands for “compensation” for the imposed 4th and 5th packages of sanctions. It is not very clear why Moscow should “compensate” for the losses for the hijacking of a European airliner... Lukashenko brought “facts” of terror against his supporters to St. Petersburg as a reason to ask for money again. Recall the main goal of absolutely all of Lukashenko’s trips to the Russian Federation: to ask for resources and money,” the expert believes.

Interestingly, Lukashenko flew to St. Petersburg the day after another vague comment from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry on the fate of direct air traffic between Minsk and Crimea - Head of the Foreign Ministry Vladimir Makei again evasively said that flights to the peninsula are possible if it is economically profitable.

“Landing a plane with Protasevich, giving time to those detained, etc. – it doesn’t matter that sanctions will follow after that. But as soon as the topic of regular flights to Crimea comes up, they are immediately afraid of sanctions and start rotten conversations about benefits,” comments political scientist Bogdan Bezpalko.