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“I do not see any contradiction here. We always say to our Russian friends and also our European partners: we are not going to break away from Russia. We are well aware that our economies and economic systems are closely intertwined, and we are destined to cooperate with each other. There is a clear understanding that we are in no way going to sever our ties, be it economic, political or military ones with our Russian friends,” the Belarusian minister noted.

At the same time, the minister said that amid the financial and economic crises, Belarus must have some safety net to avoid major shocks. “We want to maintain and increase our presence on the Russian market. At the same time, we want to have closer contacts with the countries of the so-called distant arc, with the European Union, which is our second largest trading partner after Russia,” Vladimir Makei said.

He underlined that the Belarusian side has a clear focus on keeping its positions on the Russian market. “Rest assured that Belarus has no intention of breaking away from Russia,” said Vladimir Makei. “We understand that only with the neighboring countries we can have we can have high trade volumes only with our neighboring countries, and this will benefit both our states and our peoples,” he added.