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Russia will provide a state credit amounting to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to Belarus, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Monday, TASS reported.
"We have agreed that Russia will provide a state credit [amounting to] 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to Belarus in this challenging situation, and we will do it. As far as I know our finance ministers are addressing that issue at the professional level," Putin was quoted as saying.
In addition to announcing the loan, which Putin said Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin had agreed to during a recent visit to the Belarusian capital, the Russian president signaled support for Lukashenko in other ways, saying defense cooperation would continue between the two countries.
Russian news agencies reported separately that Moscow was sending paratroopers on Monday for joint exercises.
Putin also backed plans Lukashenko has previously announced for constitutional reform, which the opposition has dismissed as a stunt to cling to power after an election it says was rigged, and said it was up to Belarusians to resolve the crisis themselves.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrives at an airport in Sochi, Russia, September 14, 2020. /Reuters
The meeting took place a day after more than 100,000 protesters took to the streets of Minsk for the fifth straight weekend to demand Lukashenko's removal since he won a sixth term in the August election.
774 people have been detained, said the police.
The mass protests, according to Lukashenko, are a Western plot. He also blamed the U.S. for its involvementand asked it to "stay out of Belarus's domestic issues".
"The U.S. is planning and directing everything, and the Europeans are playing up to it," Lukashenko said on August 22.
The opposition says it fears Lukashenko could try to sell out Belarusian independence for Putin's support. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate whose supporters say she was the true winner of the election, said no agreement reached by Lukashenko with Putin would be valid.
"I want to remind Vladimir Putin: whatever you accept and whatever you agree upon during the meeting in Sochi will have no legal weight," she wrote on social media site Telegram.
"All the agreements signed with an illegitimate Lukashenko will be revised by the new leadership. Because the Belarusian people have refused to put their trust in Lukashenko and support him at the election. I am very sorry that you have decided to engage in dialogue with a dictator and not the Belarusian people."
(CGTN)
