Lukashenko demands new discounts from Russia in exchange for abandoning multi-vector policy
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that he does not understand why Russia does not like Minsk’s multi-vector policy.
He stated this at a meeting on foreign policy, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I’m actually surprised and don’t quite understand why certain forces in the Russian Federation have jumped up against our multi-vector approach. We would like them to say what complaints they have against us in this regard.
We have clearly stated that our closest ally, our dear country and people, is Russia and the Russians. We have never turned our backs on Russia. Even in those times when they wiped their feet on us.
Do you remember the gas price for this year, when Germany paid $95 per thousand cubic meters, and we paid $127. When we bought oil from them, they forced us to pay a premium for it. When we were criticized in all the media, we behaved with dignity.
If someone understands our multi-vector path, that we are “once again” turning away from Russia, this is not so. It is nonsense. Today, half of our product exports are sold outside of Russia. We need to ensure this export politically and diplomatically. That's all multi-vectorism. This is an axiom. Any state pursues such a policy. And there is no need to point fingers at us here.
If someone sees that we should not pursue this multi-vector policy, but stick to only one vector, then we need to offer normal conditions so that we do not look in different directions. But they don’t want that either.
We are forced to pursue a multi-vector policy due to the fact that we are in the center of Europe, we are an independent sovereign state and the economy and the well-being of our people are pushing us towards this,” Lukashenko said.
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