Statement adopted by Putin and Lukashenko might disguise their true deal

The statement on results of the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko does not make clear if the parties have come to certain agreements in the military field, Russian political analyst Pavel Svyatenkov has said to EADaily on Dec 15.

The talks of the Russian and Belarusian leaders took place in Moscow on Tuesday. As a result of the negotiations, quite a general a statement was adopted. It does not clarify one of the key issues of the current Russian-Belarusian agenda: possibility of deploying a Russian air base in Belarus. Meanwhile, Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced after the talks that the subject of the air base had not been discussed, despite statements made by a number of Russian officials that it had been planned to be discussed at the meeting.

Svyatenkov says that the final statement is worded in a vague manner, “evading the matter.” “It mentions “increasing coordination”, “boosting cooperation”, “intensifying interaction”, but certain steps are defined concerning no need for examination in Russian for Belarusian migrants only, which makes sense. However, this the only practical measure in a row of points of the statement. So, it is not clear if Putin and Lukashenko managed to agree on military issues,” the analyst notes.

“Nevertheless, the statement contains a point on the need to intensify cooperation within frameworks of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and, probably, we deal here with a statement made for the public, and it might disguise true agreements of the parties. Let’s wait and see how it will be implemented, because it is too obscure and diplomatic,” he continues.

Svyatenkov also stressed that the document means that Russia and Belarus continue being allies who are reinforcing their “partnership and interaction”, but it does not say how far this “reinforcement” will come.

According to the statement passed after the Putin-Lukashenko talks, the parties agreed to “deepen multilateral partnership of the two countries based on mutual trust and taking into account interests of each other”, “coordinate effort within the Union State and the Eurasian Economic Union to provide additional conditions for growth of mutual trade and intensify business activities of the real economy of the two countries” as well as implement several tasks on the agenda.