Russian President Vladimir Putin has assured on Monday from Minsk, the Belarusian capital, that Russia «has no interest in absorbing anyone». Putin has agreed with Belarus on a common energy market and fixed sales prices for the next three years.
«Russia has no interest in absorbing anyone,» Putin said after meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and announcing an agreement for a common energy market following a «very productive» meeting.
«It’s not about absorbing anyone. It’s about aligning economic policies. This is how it is done in other integration partnerships. The opposite would make no sense. They are just attempts to slow down our integration. They want competitors that could be dangerous for them not to emerge on the international market. That’s all,» he said in statements carried by the Belarusian news agency BelTA.
Lukashenko has backed Putin’s approach. «All this takeover is coming from outside, from the opposition that has self-exiled. Several thousand of them have fled and they need to earn money and they can’t earn money without doing anything. They don’t even write these things, they are dictated to,» he has argued.
Putin has confirmed the agreement on oil and gas prices «on very favorable terms.» «We have discussed the price parameters in the energy sector,» he stressed, although he did not specify the agreed price.
«I can say only one thing: we are happy with the result of negotiations for a common gas market and prices for the next three years,» Lukashenko stressed.
Putin also announced that they will continue to cooperate with Belarus in the nuclear field with a view to the construction of a second nuclear reactor.
The Belarusian Astravets nuclear power plant, which produces the equivalent of 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year since its commissioning in 2021, although Russia could sell this gas to Minsk.
«We could supply natural gas, but now this nuclear power plant is in operation and generates the equivalent of 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas that Gazprom could sell to Belarus,» Putin stressed.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
