The Kremlin Denied Information about Proposing to Unite Russia and Belarus

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not offer his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko to unite Russia and Belarus, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Russian president said. Presidents talked about deepening union integration, he explained. “Not. This is not true. We talked about deepening integration within the Union State,” Mr. Peskov answered the corresponding question from RIA Novosti. Earlier, Bloomberg, citing Kremlin sources, reported that Mr Putin, a month before delivering the message to the Federal Assembly on January 15, urged the Belarusian president to “revive” the agreement on the creation of the Union State. The agency notes that the “takeover” of Belarus would help the Russian president become the head of the new Union State, bypassing the limit on the number of presidential terms. According to the agency, Mr. Lukashenko did not support the idea, which was the reason for Moscow’s refusal to supply oil to Minsk on favorable terms. Recall that at the end of 2019, Minsk and Moscow could not agree on oil supplies for 2020. Due to the lack of an agreement, in early January, the pumping of Russian raw materials to Belarusian refineries was suspended for several days. In search of alternative oil suppliers, Belarus has already purchased about 80 thousand tons of oil from Norway. The readiness to provide the country with the necessary raw materials has already been announced in Washington.