MINSK, October 22. /TASS/. The situation around the Union State of Russia and Belarus is difficult, the allies need to jointly react to emerging challenges, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday at a meeting with Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin.

"We openly say that the situation around us is difficult, I mean the Union State of Russia and Belarus," he noted.

He extended gratitude to Naryshkin for providing the relevant information to Belarus. "Thank you for the information that you regularly communicate to our intelligence services and me in particular. We are treating it very seriously, we have a lot of joint work in light of this," the Belarusian leader stressed. Lukashenko added that many documents introduce him to "results of work of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service when it comes to relations of the Union State."

"We have few friends in this crazy world, the world that is gone especially mad because of this pandemic," he continued. "Everybody has interests in us, Russia and Belarus. We should react. I think we will agree a lot of things about our joint work, activities for the betterment of our nations, of course," Lukashenko said.