VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME /Amur Region/, April 12. /TASS/. Moscow and Minsk should strengthen integration in a situation where the West has unleashed a total sanction war, Russian President Vladmir Putin said after talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday.
"I am certain that in the current situation, where the Western countries have unleashed a total sanction war against Russia and Belarus, it is important to strengthen our integration within the framework of the Union State. We are unanimous in this respect," Putin said.
"We will continue to present a common front to resist any attempts to slow down the development of our countries or to artificially isolate them from the global economy," Putin said. "I believe that this (attempts to isolate Russia and Belarus - TASS) is absolutely futile. Russia and Belarus are connected by many economic bonds, including those within the framework of our industrial cooperation, and such attempts against us will certainly fail."
"I am confident that we will get stronger, because we are going to develop our own competences and have no intention to isolate ourselves," Putin said.
He stressed that the governments of the two countries had "made arrangements for import substitution and smooth functioning of financial and commodity markets."
"Among the priority tasks to be coped with in the process of building the Union State there are the unification and harmonization of bilateral trade, elimination of administrative and technical barriers and creation of equal opportunities for Russian and Belarusian citizens and for business," Putin said. He recalled that this was the task of the 28 industrial integration programs adopted last year.
"We are close allies and we build our relations on the unshakable principles of mutual respect and support, on the traditions of friendship and neighborliness, a common history, spiritual and cultural values and tight bonds of kinship," Putin said. He described Belarus as Russia’s leading trading and economic partner in the CIS, which in terms of cooperation was Russia’s fourth biggest partner in the world. "In 2021, the trade turnover was up by more than one third to $40 billion," Putin said.