OREANDA-NEWS. Russia will provide Belarus with a state loan of 1.5 billion US dollars, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during negotiations with Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi.

Putin recalled that the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Mishustin, was recently on a visit to Belarus. “I know that he held very serious big negotiations, and they were successful in all areas of our interaction. By the way, in the financial sphere too. We agreed that Russia will provide Belarus with a state loan of 1.5 billion dollars at this difficult moment,” Putin said, opening the meeting with Lukashenko. “And we will fulfil this. As far as we know, our finance ministers are working now on this at a professional level,” the Russian President added.

“We have gathered for this now, to talk about everything, but first of all, of course, we should discuss economic issues, because the drop [In trade turnover. – Ed.] by more than 21 % is a decent drop. This is not related to our work, it is connected with global trends in connection with the coronavirus. But we will fight the coronavirus together, and, I am sure, we will overcome the current difficulties in the economy,” Putin noted.