Belarus and Russia have mostly managed to mitigate the effects of “primitive” Western sanctions, which have hurt the common people of the EU instead, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in Minsk on Monday.
“Thanks to steps we’ve taken together, we generally managed to overcome the possible negative effects of the sanctions pressure,” Lukashenko said at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, complimenting the sanctions specialists from both countries on a job well done.
The US and its EU allies have embarked on a sweeping embargo against Russia and Belarus in February, citing the escalating conflict in Ukraine. Lukashenko described the sanctions as “primitive” and said they’ve had “a boomerang effect” instead, hitting the ordinary people and enterprises on the European continent, but not those who “started an economic war against our country” and a proxy war against Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”
Meanwhile, the Russian president agreed that Moscow and Minsk have “confidently and effectively” resisted illegal restrictive measures imposed by “unfriendly states.”
Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Minsk on Monday for a series of talks with their Belarusian counterparts about economic, military, and energy cooperation.