“Novye Izvestiya”: Russia and Belarus formalize official “divorce”

The visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has caused a new scandal.

For the first time such a high-ranking Russian official visiting a Belarusian capital did not meet Lukashenka, “Novye Izvestiya” writes.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was viewed by Minsk one of the main lobbyists of Belarus in Moscow. It was believed that he abstained from participation in the informational war between Moscow and Minsk as possible. The time of the current visit was believed not to be accidental as well: recently Lavrov’s colleagues from Germany and Poland, Guido Westerwelle and Radoslaw Sikorski, visited Minsk not long ago. After that observers spoke about noticeable pro-Western tendency in the foreign policy of Belarus. It was expected that Sergei Lavrov would try to change the situation.

However everything started to change even before the visit of the Russian minister to Minsk. On Monday morning, hearing the report on the Plan of deploying the regional military grouping of Russia and Belarus, Lukashenka harshly criticized the Russian side for an attempt “to transit to market relations in the military sphere”. Alyaksandr Lukashenka has stated that he is ready to defend the “union state”, but Russia in its turn must help him in this sphere. Then the spokesperson of the Belarusian ruler Pavel Lyohki told to journalists that a meeting of Lukashenka with Russian Foreign Minister was not planned. As a result Sergei Lavrov was in fact the first head of the Foreign Ministry of Russia who visiting Belarus had not met with the Belarusian head.

Yesterday morning Interfax wit ha reference to its anonymous source in the Kremlin informed that “a meeting of Sergei Lavrov and the Belarusian president could not take place, as Russian Foreign Minister had clear instructions about that from Russian president Dmitry Medvedev”. So it turned out that the Russian side refused to meet with the Belarusian leader. And Belarusians finally agreed to that. However Russian and Belarusian diplomats worked in a way as if nothing was happening. They considered questions relating to the activities of inter-governmental integration associations at the territory of the CIS. Sergei Lavrov together with Belarusian Foreign Minister Syarhei Martynau also discussed the issues of relations with the EU, the process of preparation to another OSCE summit, and as official press releases show, “exchanges opinions on the most important issues of Belarusian-Russian cooperation.”

In a conversation with a correspondent of “NI” a Belarusian political analyst Andrei Fiodarau expressed conviction that all these events mean “a beginning of divorce proceedings between Moscow and Minsk.” “The union state does not exist de facto, and the sides are in the process of burying it de facto currently,” he summed up.