MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. The decision on the fiscal maneuver in Russia is not related to relations between Russia and Belarus, a source related to ex-Prime Minister, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev told reporters on Friday.
"The decision on the fiscal maneuver was made within the framework of optimizing budget revenues and is not related to Russian-Belarusian relations at all," the source said.
The ex-government was focused on the development and deepening of Russian-Belarusian integration, the source noted. "The previous government did its best for the development and deepening of integration between Russia and Belarus and there is no our fault in absence of significant success on this track," he added.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said earlier on Friday that he viewed the fiscal maneuver in Russia as an attempt of Moscow to put pressure on Minsk.
Minsk and Moscow have been negotiating the supply of Russian hydrocarbons to Belarus. On December 30-31, 2019, Presidents of Belarus and Russia Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, discussed this issue by telephone.
Following the talks, Lukashenko instructed the authorities to conclude contracts with companies from Russia for the supply of oil in 2020 to ensure the smooth operation of two Belarusian oil refineries, but no documents were signed by January 1.
At the same time, Lukashenko instructed the leadership of the petrochemical complex to work out options for alternative supplies of hydrocarbons. On January 14, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Dmitry Krutoy announced that the government had sent commercial proposals for the purchase of oil to Ukraine, Poland, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the Baltic countries.
On January 3, Belneftekhim stated that the supplies of Russian oil were not conducted. The loading of the oil refineries was reduced to the minimum technologically permissible level. On January 4, one-time contracts for the supply of oil to Belarusian refineries were resumed. According to a TASS source familiar with the negotiations between the companies, a schedule for Russian oil supplies to Belarus has been signed, and it is planned to deliver about 600,000 tonnes of oil by the end of the month.
On January 20, it became known that Belarus had bought 80,000 tonnes of oil from Norway.