MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Moscow and Minsk show readiness to fully expand relations in all directions, Alexey Polishchuk, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second CIS Department, told TASS in an interview.

Commenting on the results of the January 26 presidential election in Belarus, the diplomat stated that the residents of the republic expressed their full support for the policy of President Alexander Lukashenko on both domestic and international affairs.

"This fully applies to the consistent course of reinforcing the traditionally close ties of the fraternal peoples of Russia and Belarus, building the Union State and developing mutually advantageous cooperation within integration multilateral associations shared by us," he emphasized.

Polishchuk also pointed out that after reviewing the voting results, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his election victory and extended an invitation for him to visit Moscow.

Belarusian presidential election

The general voting for the presidential election took place on January 26, while early voting was held from January 21 to 25. On February 3, the Belarusian Central Election Commission announced the final results, confirming the victory of the incumbent head of state.

According to the CEC’s final data, Lukashenko won 86.82% of votes. He was followed by Sergey Syrankov with 3.21%. Next were Oleg Gaidukevich (2.02%), Anna Kanopatskaya (1.86%), and Alexander Khizhnyak (1.74%). Some did not cast their ballot for any of these candidates, a total of 3.60% of voters. Out of around 6.9 million eligible voters, 85.69% of citizens came to the polls.