Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a press conference following talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Feb. 18. “Sanctions will be imposed in any case. Whether they have a reason today, for example, in connection with the events in Ukraine, or there is no such reason—it will be found, because the goal is different, in this case the goal is to slow down the development of Russia and Belarus. With this aim, there will always be a reason to introduce certain illegitimate restrictions, and this is nothing more than unfair competition,” Putin said, according to TASS. He added that sanctions pressure “is absolutely illegitimate.”
He remarked with regret that Moscow and Minsk have been living “in such a paradigm for many, many years, because those in power, [who] consider themselves the masters of today’s life, they always interpret everything only in their own favor and neglect the interests of other [countries].”
“There is only one way to overcome this state of affairs—to strengthen ourselves from within, and above all, of course, in the economy,” the President stated. When asked who can help Russia and Belarus counter the sanctions, Putin responded that Moscow and Minsk “should help themselves in this sense…. This is exactly what today’s meeting [with Lukashenko] is aimed at,” Putin said, and that their meeting was about economic cooperation.
