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Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin: help "in this difficult moment"
Photo: KREMLIN HANDOUT / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
For the first time since the controversial presidential election in Belarus, ruler Alexander Lukashenko has left the country.
Financially, the trip to Russia was worth it.
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin promised his politically troubled counterpart a loan of the equivalent of 1.5 billion US dollars.
The neighboring country should get help from Moscow "at this difficult moment", Putin said on Monday at the meeting with Lukashenko in Sochi.
The Belarusian head of state has been under heavy pressure since the August election, which sparked mass protests.
At the beginning of the meeting, Lukashenko described his own situation with Putin as follows: "A friend is in trouble - and I say that quite frankly."
He sees that correctly: in Minsk alone, according to estimates by observers, more than 150,000 people took to the streets and hundreds were arrested.
Masked uniformed men acted particularly brutally against the democracy movement.
The prison authorities spoke of full prisons.
The security forces justified their actions by saying that the actions were not authorized.
Lukashenko met with Putin on the Black Sea to discuss a way out of the serious political crisis.
The 66-year-old has been in power for 26 years.
The conversation lasted around four hours.
Putin does not want the credit to be understood as interference in Belarusian affairs
The democracy movement sees 38-year-old Svetlana Tichanowskaya as the winner of the presidential election on August 9th.
After the vote, Lukashenko declared himself the winner - with 80.1 percent of the vote.
The meeting with Putin was their first face-to-face meeting since the election.
Belarus is economically heavily dependent on its neighbor Russia.
According to its own Treasury Department, the country has US $ 18 billion in debt abroad, much of it in Russia.
A Kremlin spokesman said that the newly granted financial resources should primarily be used to refinance the old loans: "This should in no way be interpreted as interference in internal affairs."
Due to the tense situation, Putin also spoke out in favor of constitutional reform in Belarus.
Lukashenko has not ruled out changes several times.
At the meeting with Putin, too, he emphasized his intention to drive this forward.
Russian units should withdraw from the border with the neighboring country
The opposition is convinced, however, that these promises only want to buy time.
Putin's spokesman stressed that no other state should interfere in a constitutional change.
This also applies to Russia.
Only the result "that the Belarusian people want" should come out.
Russia is also withdrawing its reserve forces from the border with Belarus.
The Kremlin announced that the additional officials and national guards sent after the outbreak of the mass protests would withdraw again.
Putin had ordered the units to reinforce the border at the end of August so that they could intervene in an emergency.
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