It took Lukashenko a couple of days to respond to Vladimir Putin’s statements on unification, voiced by the Russian president on June 13. The delay in answer was natural: Putin categorically denied Belarusian integration model, proposing to the sovereign state to consent to the complete takeover by another country. In other words, Russians want Belarus to turn into another of their autonomous areas. Seemingly, Lukashenko, who’s fully dependent on Moscow economically, must elaborate some new, flexible policy, which would allow him not to lose ground.

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Belarus will never become 90th constituent of the Russian Federation. The union of the two states must be based upon an equal foundation. On Tuesday, five days later, Alexander Lukashenko responded to Vladimir Putin’s accusations of his policy in the union’s formation. “Russia is a democratic country, where every individual, the president included, has the right, just like ourselves, to speak his mind”.

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June 18 evening the president of the Russian Federation called Alexander Lukashenko. As said by the press-secretary of the Belarusian leader Natalia Petkevich, the main issue, discussed by the presidents, were the perspectives of the further development of the Belarusian-Russian “union” and the strategies of integration processes in both countries. Vladimir Putin proposed to Lukashenko to hold a joint meeting after June 25 upon Putin’s return from Canada. The Russian media report nothing of the phone talk so far.

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International Confederation of free trade unions published its annual report on trade unions’ rights violations worldwide. The document criticizes Belarus as the country with the poorest record in this regard. Numerous, never ceasing violations of trade unionists’ rights, apart from other negative consequences, put in danger the very trade relations between Belarus and the European Union.

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Defender Julia Chigir called the decision of the Minsk city court, which didn’t satisfy the complaint over the cancellation of verdict against the ex-Premier’s son, politically motivated. Alexander Chigir was sentenced to 7 years of jail with full property confiscation for alleged “assistance in car thefts”. Attorney Alexander Pylchenko told Radio Ratsya that the verdict of the municipal court would definitely be appealed against soon. The lawyer plans to address its chair and the Supreme Court likewise.

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This week there stopped the most powerful technical installation at the Novpolotsk industrial enterprise “Naftan” – ABT-6 and today they are utilizing only one – ABT-2, capable of processing up to 3mlntons of raw oil a year. Meantime, the second giant of the Novopoltsk industry – “Polimir” – suffers from the shortage of raw materials, which is why they halted the work of the 104th workshop, producing polyethylene. As a result the production volumes curtailed almost twice.

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