Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Minsk, October 26, 2023

Mr President,

Thank you very much for the invitation and the idea of holding the High-level International Conference Eurasian Security: Reality and Prospects in a Transforming World. It is especially important now when Europe, as dictated by the Americans, decided to divide our united, large and rich in mineral resources continent, which was given to us by God and history, into two camps. This happened before, during the Soviet era and the Cold War, but even then our economic ties were not severed. Today, Europe is suffering direct losses because of Washington’s pressure.

Foreign Minister of Hungary Peter Szijjarto, who spoke at the conference today, has said openly that energy costs in Europe are five times higher than in the United States. Europe is being deindustrialised because manufacturing companies are leaving it. One of the Americans’ goals was to weaken Europe and to prevent it from squaring its shoulders and becoming economically independent.

It is an extremely important issue. Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergey Aleinik mentioned our readiness to cooperate with everyone but only as equal and honest partners. Foreign Minister Szijjarto said the same. I pointed out that we hold the door to these processes open to everyone. But if Europe prefers to shut itself off, we will have to move from the division of labour to independent and sovereign production of everything we need for development and security.

If or when they come to their senses and realise that they have deprived themselves of mutually beneficial economic opportunities, and decide to resume cooperation, we will look at the ideas they bring to our integration structures.