Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pledged to deepen their ties amid Russia's war in Ukraine in a meeting at the Kremlin. Photo by Mikhael Klimentyev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/EPA-EFE
April 6 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow would continue to build its regional ties and economic cooperation with Belarus as he met with President Alexander Lukashenko at the Kremlin.
"The Russian Federation and Belarus are building up cooperation in the field of defense and security, expanding in the military-technical sphere. This is especially important against the backdrop of a difficult international situation," Putin said in a likely allusion to its war in Ukraine during a session of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two leaders held "lengthy and meaningful" discussions and said the sit-down "lasted well after midnight," according to the state-run TASS news agency.
The meeting came as Putin announced a plan last month for Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which led to calls for Russia to be closely monitored while the U.S. State Department indicated it would not adjust its nuclear strategy in response.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Lukashenko said he "agrees" with comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who was visiting China to broker peace in Ukraine, that no country should deploy nuclear weapons in another country's territory.
"This is why America should remove all the nuclear weapons from five or six countries where they are deployed. And that's it," he said.
The timing of Putin's meeting with Lukashenko was also notable as Finland officially joined NATO this week, expanding the international military alliance to 31 countries and delivering a stinging blow to Moscow by doubling NATO's shared border with Russia.
In light of the widening alliance, Peskov acknowledged that Moscow had become deeply concerned about its national security, especially along its western border.
"NATO is expanding towards the Russian border. It is not Russia that is approaching with its military infrastructure the borders of NATO," Peskov said during a call with reporters. "This movement gives us trouble and concerns for our security."
On Thursday, Putin was also expected to sit down with the leaders of four Ukrainian republics that have been annexed by Moscow since the war began, including Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
