In recent years, there has been no shortage of bad blood between Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the Russian Kremlin. For example, in February 2004, Lukashenka referred to the stoppage of Russian natural gas flows into Belarus, in retaliation for Belarus’s insistence on lower prices, as “terrorism at the highest level.” And in June 2009, following a milk war—i.e., a series of rejections of Belarusian dairy products by Russia’s agricultural import controlling agency—the Belarusian head of state promised to reconsider his country’s participation in the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Still, Lukashenka’s September 20 televised statement during his talk …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation
