MINSK, May 28. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Friday that he would discuss the restoration of full-scale air service between Russia and Belarus with his counterpart Vladimir Putin during the scheduled talks in Sochi.

"If we have things more or less okay [with the coronavirus in the two countries], if we are on an equal level in this regard by all possible means, then let us open up to each other. […] Being closed will not reduce the incidence rate. Nothing will change if planes fly or not," Lukashenko said during his meeting with the CIS prime ministerial delegations.

"I think, we will agree with the president [Putin] on this issue today," the Belarusian leader said, adding that the epidemiological situation in both countries is "roughly the same."

Earlier, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko urged Russia to restore full-scale air service between the two countries and open new destination for the Belarusian carrier. He made this statement during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Mishustin, who arrived in Minsk to take part in the meeting of the CIS Council of prime ministers.

Air service between Russia and Belarus has been suspended in March 2020, at the Russian government’s initiative due to the coronavirus pandemic. Later, Belavia obtained the green light to restore regular flights to Moscow starting on September 30, 2020. The carrier gradually increased the number of flights from Minsk to Moscow and later restored flights to St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan.