MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. It is necessary to strengthen the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"The Russian and Belarusian presidents meet regularly. They have met many times this year. Such meetings are organized both in special bilateral formats and on the margins of multilateral event (Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, Eurasian Economic Union, or EAEU, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO). It is evidence of our orientation to strengthen the Union State. The necessity for that has increased," he said in response to a Belarus-1 TV question.

He also noted the importance of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led security bloc. "We must rely only on ourselves, on the mechanisms envisaged by the 28 union programs and on extra possibilities under other integration projects on the territory of the former Soviet Union, such as the EAEU, the CIS, and also the CSTO, which should strengthen its unity, solidarity in the face of ‘attacks’ on the world order based on the United Nations Charter," Lavrov added.