"We will never forget this"

The President of Belarus is ready to move closer to the West in retaliation against Russia

The President of Belarus made an unexpected and sharp attack yesterday after a compromise had just been reached with Moscow regarding Russian oil supplies. Alexander Lukashenko, during voting in local elections, sharply criticized Russia’s actions in the oil conflict with his country and promised to move closer to the West. “We are required to join Russia, but I do not want to bury the sovereignty and independence of the country as the first president of Belarus,” he said.

The Belarusian leader stated that Moscow and Minsk have different views on building a union state . “From all the consultations and negotiations, I realized that we have different approaches and concepts for building a union state. The union must be built on the principles of equality,” said Mr. Lukashenko. “The Russian side went to the extent of trampling the union and derailing an entire country with friendly fraternal people... If every year they grab the valve, then there can be no talk of any union,” he believes.

Alexander Lukashenko made it clear that a new aggravation in relations is possible, promising to introduce “a duty and some kind of payment on goods that are sensitive for Russia” if the access of Belarusian products to the Russian market is limited. He did not rule out that in case of pressure from Moscow, Minsk would introduce rent for the land under the oil pipeline. According to him, when Russia was in difficult conditions, the Belarusian side “built the Yamal-Europe branch without taxes and lost about $1 billion on this.” “We acted like brothers and were not looking for profit,” he emphasized and said that for gas transit Russia allegedly pays Poland 4.5-5 billion dollars, and Belarus - only 120 million (according to Vremya Novostei, payments for the transit of Russian gas through Polish territory amount to about $300 million). As a result, Lukashenko made an offer to Moscow: “Pay us $5 billion (for gas transit - Ed. ), and we will not argue over the price of gas.”

Old Man argued that the responsibility for cutting off oil supplies to Europe lies with the Russian side: “We have nothing to do with the escalation of tensions around the oil pipeline. This crisis was not provoked by us... In Europe, many understood after this conflict - today we are, and tomorrow there may be them.” “Europe and the United States behaved decently in this situation. They offered us support. We will never forget this,” Lukashenko said. And as proof, he promised to develop relations with Western countries: “We are ready to cooperate with the devil, even with the devil, to ensure energy security... If Europe is ready to cooperate, we will agree to any cooperation with Europe in this regard.”

Developing his thoughts on Russia's energy policy, the Belarusian president sharply criticized the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea and suggested that Russia build another line of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline. “Russia’s stupidest project is the construction of a gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea. It is unknown what could happen to this gas pipeline, which lies on a pile of ammunition,” Mr. Lukashenko said yesterday, essentially repeating what the leaders of Poland and the Baltic countries are saying. According to the Belarusian leader, “this project can be included in the Guinness Book of Records”: “Is Gazprom’s construction of the Baltic gas pipeline a normal policy? What, can we conduct normal negotiations with such leadership?” Commenting on these statements by Alexander Lukashenko, a source in the Kremlin told RIA Novosti: “These words are another good confirmation of the need to build such a pipeline.”

The Belarusian leader's escapades look illogical after the conflict was seemingly resolved at the end of the week through a complex compromise. However, Alexander Lukashenko did not pretend that even the “bad world” was dear to him. A high-ranking Vremya Novostei source in Moscow explains this by saying that Alexander Lukashenko had an extremely tense telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin . According to our interlocutor, Lukashenko began his speech with a reproach that Moscow “deceived” him. After which the conversation turned to elevated tones. Apparently, the result of this was Lukashenko’s desire to “go to the West.”

It is noteworthy that at the end of 2006, the European Union once again offered Belarus a warming of relations in exchange for carrying out democratic and market reforms in the country. True, the head of the Belarusian analytical center “Strategy” Leonid Zaika, in an interview with Vremya Novostei, doubted that Minsk would make a real turn towards the West: “The authorities can release two or three oppositionists from prison and allow the sale of non-state newspapers in parliament. But these are hardly steps that the West will consider sufficient. In addition, Russia, as practice has shown, has enough leverage to prevent a radical change in the priorities of Belarus’ foreign policy.”

Alexander Lukashenko also identified another culprit of the crisis in Russian-Belarusian relations - the Russian media: “Only during the Cold War can individual countries and states behave this way. “Spitting on the head of state, no matter in which newspapers and magazines, mocking the Belarusian people, who have done nothing wrong before the Russian people, I think this does not add trust to our relations.”

If we talk about the essence of the agreements between Moscow and Minsk on oil and gas, Belarusian independent experts and government officials agree that the terms of the Belarusian-Russian agreement on cooperation in the oil sector, signed on Friday, are beneficial for Minsk. The state media of Belarus present the problem in a similar way.

And Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov, at a press conference on Saturday, talking about the mechanism for collecting Russian export duties, said that the agreement signed in Moscow “is not a concession, it is a civilized way of resolving the dispute - with calculations, numbers. Calculations show that this distribution is the most fair.” The Deputy Prime Minister promised that, despite changes in the terms of cooperation with Russia in the energy sector, the government will fulfill the economic development forecast for the current year, in particular, it will not allow inflation to rise above the planned 6-8%.

“From an economic point of view, this will not lead to serious changes or shocks... There will be no budget losses in our country, and there will be no damage to business related to oil refining,” Mr. Kobyakov said, answering the question “ News time."

Olga TOMASHEVSKAYA, Minsk, Anna NAUMOVA, Minsk, Ivan GORDEEV