Lukashenko to attend informal meeting of CIS leaders in St. Petersburg
The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, arrived in St. Petersburg on December 25th to take part in an informal meeting of the CIS heads of state on December 26th-27th, BelTA reports
It is scheduled that the state leaders will gather in the afternoon of December 26th at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, in the centre of St. Petersburg. The meeting will be hosted by a historic Synod building on Senate Square, which is quite often used for summits of the kind.
On December 25th, Aleksandr Lukashenko was welcomed at the airport by two governors: Aleksandr Drozdenko (of the Leningrad Region) and Alexander Beglov (of St. Petersburg). The Belarusian leader has already met with both of them this year. Belarus has historically enjoyed close co-operation ties with the Leningrad Region and St. Petersburg in various fields, and these have been strengthening in recent times. Among other things, large-scale projects dealing with the use of the Russian port infrastructure for transhipment of Belarusian cargos are on the agenda.
Residents of Belarus and St. Petersburg – which is actually Russia’s northern capital, as well as the two countries’ peoples are united by their common historical memory. On January 18th, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad. Commemorative events are planned, and siege survivors – who live in Belarus – will be invited as well.
Actually, such New Year's Eve meetings of the heads of state have already become a good tradition. Russian President Vladimir Putin invited his colleagues to gather in St. Petersburg at the end of the year during the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Bishkek on December 9th.
In general, at such meetings, the heads of state do not usually make long programme speeches, and the part open to the media is mostly limited only to a protocol statement of the summit host. Actually, such a format is valuable, since it makes it possible to compare notes in a calm, relaxed atmosphere on certain topical issues, and also to develop approaches to solving the problems on the agenda.
The New Year's Eve informal summit on December 28th, 2021 was an exception in this regard. It was also held in St. Petersburg, and everyone was concerned then about the pandemic. A fight against coronavirus infection became one of the topics, and Anna Popova, the Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of Russia, was invited to the meeting of the heads of state to speak on the issue. Aleksandr Lukashenko then asked a number of topical questions, the answers to which were very valuable both for the leaders of the countries and ordinary citizens of the CIS.
In St. Petersburg, the heads of state are to sum up the results of the outgoing year of 2022, discuss plans for further co-operation in the most relevant areas for the CIS. As the Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee, Sergei Lebedev, noted, the informal summit will give additional impetus to strengthening co-operation both within the Commonwealth and the Union State of Belarus and Russia, TASS informs.
The Russian Interfax news agency clarifies that, apart from communication in a multilateral format, the leaders will have the opportunity to discuss bilateral issues in St. Petersburg. In particular, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will take part in the meeting. Earlier, the Armenian side did not rule out that the two leaders would talk before the end of the year, although it did not specify the date and place. At the same time, despite the possibility, a trilateral meeting of Putin, Aliyev and Pashinyan is not planned on the side-lines of the summit.
"They [the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia] will be present [in St. Petersburg], but no trilateral meeting [with participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin – BelTA’s remark] is planned,” Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of Russia, told Interfax yesterday.
The previous time the leaders of the countries met in the format of the CIS was in Astana, on October 14th: that was a meeting of the Council of Heads of State. It was a full-scale summit, which was chaired by the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
The heads of state exchanged views on topical issues of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In particular, a number of important statements by Aleksandr Lukashenko were made, and they were covered by the media. Since their topicality has not decreased but even increased more than two months after that event, it would be reasonable to recall what the Belarusian President said then. Obviously, the conversation would tackle the problems he raised at that meeting this time as well.
"Unfortunately, what we have been talking about for so long over the years has come true, has become a reality. A real hybrid war has been unleashed against all of us, and Ukraine is just a pretext here. The plans of certain countries to take revenge for the lost campaigns of the last century have been hatched for a long time, starting, as you know, from the first days after the victory in the Great Patriotic War, and maybe even earlier," the Belarusian leader said at the summit in Astana.
According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, Russia and Belarus are at the forefront of economic and financial attacks now. “I think everyone understands that true goals of Western strategists are much broader: to split the Eurasian space by sectors of influence and to use our countries as raw materials and industrial appendages. We need to be prepared for the most diverse provocations around the CIS perimeter, and the recent events in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are convincing and very illustrative examples. Actually, this is just the beginning: everyone will be tested for strength," he stressed.
The Belarusian leader noted the lack of mutual support among the CIS partners in a number of cases, also drawing attention to the fact that principled national positions still hinder effective joint counteraction to Western sanctions pressure. Aleksandr Lukashenko added that many interethnic and territorial disputes – that the Soviet Union failed to resolve or lacked time to do that – are still present in the post-Soviet space. External players are now making incredible efforts to turn every, even the most insignificant dispute, into a heated confrontation.
"Speaking about the economic situation, it should be noted that it is difficult. The ill-considered actions of certain governments, primarily in the West, have caused significant damage to the global economy. Using the example of Belarus and Russia, you have seen how traditional sales markets can close overnight for national goods and purchases of critical imports, how well-established forms of interstate settlements, sources of investment and much more can become inaccessible," the Belarusian leader noted. “However, we have everything to minimise our dependence on global shocks and unfriendly steps of the aggressive states. It is only necessary to use these opportunities skilfully."Let's hope that those messages of the Belarusian leader were heard and taken into consideration, and that the current summit – though being informal and held on the New Year's Eve – will act as a ground to take a joint confident step into the future. After all, it is not the formats of meetings that matter, but their results.
