Russian President Medvedev to visit Lukashenka

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to visit Belarus to 22 June. Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Dmitry Medvedev are to meet in Brest. Meanwhile, Lukashenka is the only CIS head of state, who had no bilateral meetings with the new Russian President on last weekend in St. Petersburg.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Dmitry Medvedev are to meet in Brest on 22 June. Official agency BelTA reports it referring to Lukashenka’s press service. Lukashenka attended the unofficial CIS summit in ST. Petersburg lat weekend, where he remained the only head of state the new Russian President Medvedev had no bilateral meetings with.

Experts suggested Russia was pressing over Lukashenka for him to fulfil the agreements, reached during the December visit of Vladimir Putin to Minsk. At first instance, the case may be in transferring to Russian ruble as a common currency, and in Belarusian state property, which is attractive for Russian oligarchs (Beltransgaz, MAZ, petrochemistry and oil refining enterprises).

Russian politologist Andrei Ryabov says without equivoques: a stumbling block is “issues on the rights of Belarusian elites, heading the privatisation. Of course, they wouldn’t like to be left without nothing in their own country. They understand well manners of the Russian business, they understand we will take everything.”

So Moscow is apparently not so much afraid to spoil its image as to estimate how to grab in easiest way. It expects for the client to draw to a head. It thinks the time is on its side. Belarus may face the hardest time when it has played its transit trumps.

Russia’s Ambassador A. Surikov has recently said Lukashenka and Medvedev will meet in late summer, when they will “have issues to discuss.” The ambassador had in view gas prices for 2009 first of all.

It is notable that the only meeting of Lukashenka and Medvedev was informal and took place in Sochi, when the current Russian president was a prime minister.

A conclusion suggests itself that ignoring of Lukashenka by Medvedev in St. Petersburg has made Lukashenka to come to terms with Russia. One can suggest, they already have “the issues to discuss.”