MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2020) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is scheduled to arrive in Russia for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the southwestern Russian resort-city of Sochi on Monday.
This will be Lukashenko's first foreign visit since the eruption of mass opposition protests in Belarus following the August 9 presidential election.
The two leaders are expected to discuss issues of importance pertaining to bilateral Russia-Belarus relations and strategic cooperation. This will likely include the progress of integration within the Union State of Russia and Belarus and large energy and trade partnership projects.
The focus of attention, however, is expected to be Russia's stance on the recent political events in Belarus. Speaking of his visit's objectives last week, Lukashenko said he hoped to "dot the i's and cross the t's" on the "sensitive" aspects of the bilateral relationship.
BILATERAL AFFAIRS DURING MONTH OF PROTESTS
Mass protests in Belarus have been ongoing for over a month now. People took to the streets in Minsk and other big cities after the opposition denounced the official presidential election results � according to which Lukashenko collected over 80 percent of the vote � and claimed instead that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an opposition candidate, won the election.
Police cracked down on protesters during the first several days of the unrest, but have since halted the excessive use of force. More than 6,700 people were detained during the initial phase of the protests. According to the Belarusian Interior Ministry, three people died and several hundred others sustained injuries during that period, including more than 130 security officers.
The Belarusian authorities have been in touch with the counterparts in Russia since the onset of the protests. The two presidents spoke on the phone several times. In one of these conversations, Lukashenko asked Putin to put together a reserve of law enforcement officers to be deployed in Belarus, if necessary, which Putin said he had agreed to do, as per Russia's commitments under the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Union State Treaty, but only in the case if the situation exacerbates into uncontrollable unrest.
In the meantime, Moscow has repeatedly pointed Minsk's attention to the need to negotiate with people about their grievances, calling for a national Belarusian-led dialogue.
Talks between high-level officials during September featured calls for non-interference of third countries in Belarus' sovereign affairs. This includes the statements delivered following the visit of Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei to Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the visit of Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin to Moscow for attendance in the joint SCO, CSTO and CIS ministerial summit.
When Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited Minsk on September 3 for talks with Lukashenko and Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko, he reiterated Russia's rejection of foreign interference in Belarus, including by means of unilateral sanctions.
One of the most grueling issues of the bilateral agenda is Belarus' sovereign debt before Russia, amounting to $1 billion, aside from the $330 million which Minsk owes Moscow for earlier gas supplies. This is a pressing issue for Belarus, where the national currency has been loosing value since the onset of protests. Currency exchange stores had long lines of people in the days following the election day.
In late August, Lukashenko said he had reached an agreement with Putin for Russia to restructure Belarus' debt, which he expects to remedy and support the Belarusian ruble.
The integration within the Union State is another sensitive issue on the bilateral agenda.
On December 8, 1999, Russia and Belarus signed the Treaty on the Creation of a Union State of Russia and Belarus. Since December 2018, a bilateral working group has been trying to speed up the implementation of outstanding disagreements on the format of integration.
Lukashenko's opinion has been that the format of integration as outlined in the 1999 agreement became obsolete and, thus, impossible today. With that he has stressed repeatedly Minsk's readiness to continue the integration, but only once all institutions of the Union State are put in place and effectively function.
While Moscow and Minsk agreed on financial, industrial and social aspects of integration, their stances long differed on the energy and banking sectors. According to Russian Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin, the positions were 90 percent synchronized, as of June.
