Lukashenko and Putin reaffirm 20 years of their friendship

On Monday, September 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a meeting with President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived in Russia for a work visit against the backdrop of ongoing protests that started rocking Belarus after the announcement of the results of the presidential elections. The meeting between the two presidents took place in Sochi. The tete-a-tete talks lasted for more than four hours. The leaders, as it was officially announced, discussed the state and prospects for the development of bilateral cooperation in various fields, reviewed international problems and the situation in the region, as well as issues of joint response to emerging challenges.The President of Russia said that he was glad to have the opportunity to congratulate his counterpart on his victory in the presidential election in person. "We see, of course, we all know about the internal political events in Belarus connected with this election. You know our position very well: we believe that the Belarusians should, without any assistance and pressure from outside, find a way out of the crisis, in a calm manner. It is up to them to decide how to build our work further," Putin said. In turn, Alexander Lukashenko said that Vladimir Putin chose the right behaviour against the background of the crisis in the republic. Lukashenko thanked Putin and expressed gratitude to all Russians who supported the Belarusians in this post-election time.Lukashenko promised to talk to Putin about the current state of affairs in Belarus, because the media, as he said, alegedly distorted the situation."Everything, of course, is not the way it is interpreted in the media. You know it better than me how they can distort everything," Lukashenko said, adding that there was a lot of conspiracy in the media about the meeting between the presidents of the Russian Federation and Belarus.According to Lukashenko, he was closely watching the weekend protests in Minsk. The President stressed that on weekdays "the country lives an ordinary life." "On Saturday and Sunday we unblock some areas in Minsk so that people could walk through this part, but, most importantly, I constantly say this, they should not cross the line. There are red lines, and you had to draw those lines back in the day, during the war in Chechnya. God forbid we have that in Belarus, of course, but there are red lines, which no one has the right to cross," the President of Belarus said, adding that no one crossed them so far. During the meeting in Sochi, Vladimir Putin once again outlined Russia's position of non-interference in the events in Belarus. He said that citizens of Belarus should find a way out of the crisis without any pressure from the outside. Interestingly, 20 years ago, the rhetoric of the two leaders has not changed much. In October 2000, at a similar meeting in Sochi with Lukashenko, Putin also said that Russia was not going to interfere in internal affairs of Belarus. Lukashenko then thanked Putin for his support and said that  Russia supported Belarus without interfering in its internal affairs.For the time being, it remains unknown whether Russia is going to provide military support to Belarus in light of the protests in the country, nor was it said what kind of assistance exactly that could be. During the meeting in Sochi, Putin promised that Russia would fulfill all its obligations to Belarus, including those within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).