And nothing

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko met on August 27 in Sochi. The meeting was preceded by a serious deterioration in relations between the countries, and as a result, the presidents did not agree on anything. Not a single document was signed; the next time they will meet is in a month.

Kommersant notes that only cameramen who were ordered to film without sound were allowed into the protocol filming. The presidents talked for three hours, did not go out to reporters after that, and did not even drink champagne.

This, however, did not stop the assistant to the Russian president, Sergei Prikhodko, from stating, with reference to his patron, that the conversation was meaningful. But the presidents did not even begin to discuss most of the issues that cause controversy - neither the problem of Russian loans to Belarus, nor the ban on the supply of Belarusian milk, nor the scheme for Belarus to pay for Russian gas. The only result is that Medvedev and Lukashenko “agreed to instruct the governments of the Russian Federation and Belarus to hold consultations on the issues of financial and economic cooperation,” Prikhodko said. The newspaper notes that such consultations have already been ongoing since last year and have led nowhere.

Over the past four months, in addition to conflicts over gas and milk, Lukashenko pointedly did not come to Moscow for the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), did not accept chairmanship of the organization and did not sign an agreement on the creation of collective rapid reaction forces. Plus, Belarus, which Russia very much hoped for in this matter, never recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.