Фото: пресс-служба Лукашенко
Aliaksandr Lukashenka met today with Yegor Kovalchuk, governor of Russia’s Bryansk Region. The meeting addressed Belarusian citizens injured in drone attacks in the Russian region.
“I want to thank you for the assistance you provided to our people who suffered from Ukrainian drone strikes. You helped us at that time. You know that we will not remain in your debt. We are obliged to help you and will do so in every way necessary,” Lukashenka said, according to his press service.
Passenger buses in Bryansk Region have been targeted by drones twice. More recently, a drone struck a truck, seriously injuring a Belarusian citizen. Belarusian authorities had earlier advised Belarusians to avoid several roads in Bryansk Region that frequently come under attack.
“We are in direct contact with my colleagues from Homiel and Mahiliou. We discuss many issues, both economic cooperation and cultural exchange. Of course, the shared tragedy caused by drone attacks has brought us closer. Unfortunately, such incidents continue. But we remain in close and very prompt contact, as I want to emphasise once again,” Kovalchuk said in response to Lukashenka.
Speaking about cooperation with Bryansk Region, Lukashenka again set a target of increasing bilateral trade turnover to $1 billion.
“We once planned to develop our foundation — economic relations. We came close to the billion-dollar mark but did not reach it. We need to set ourselves the task of surpassing $1 billion in trade turnover at all costs,” he said.
Lukashenka also discussed specific areas of cooperation. In construction, he expressed a desire to move from occasional projects to turnkey construction. He also offered assistance with gasification in Bryansk Region.
“It is very important for us to avoid unnecessary competition. Healthy competition is good. But unnecessary competition, when we duplicate production facilities that already exist either on our side or yours, is bad. It is better to combine our efforts; that will produce the best results,” he said, advocating industrial cooperation.
Lukashenka expressed readiness to work together on feed production and offered the services of the Belarusian National Biotechnology Corporation (BNBC) and compound feed plants.
“The region is similar to ours, and the seeds are practically the same. We are ready for Bryansk Region to join our Institute of Agriculture and make use of our other capabilities so that we can work together on breeding seeds for agriculture,” he added.
Another proposal was to arrange health and recreation programmes in Belarus for children from Bryansk Region.