Lukashenko and Nazarbaev Kyiv visits will send message to Moscow

2014/12/21 12:24:00

The Kremlin’s propaganda machine will have some difficulty finding an effective and believable antidote to the photographs that will flash round the world in the next 72 hours as first one and then the other of Vladimir Putin’s main Eurasian Union partners is seen in warm embrace with President Petro Poroshenko – in Kyiv.

 


From RFE/RL

 

The presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan will visit Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko today and tomorrow.

 

On December 19, Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenko announced his plans to visit Kyiv today.

 

Lukashenko said he spoke by phone with Poroshenko the previous evening and based on that conversation he understood that Ukraine's government, in particular Ukraine's president, is in no way the obstacle to starting a new round of negotiations in Minsk.

 

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's press office released a statement on December 19 saying Nazarbaev would visit Ukraine on December 22 for negotiations with the leadership in Ukraine.

 

Kazakhstan and Belarus are partners in a customs union with Russia, but Minsk and Astana have been increasingly discontented with the disruptions to their economies being caused by Western sanctions against Russia.

 

Both Lukashenko and Nazarbaev are due in Moscow on December 23 for a meeting of presidents from the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

 

For access to original post, link below:

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine- ... aders-visit/26753303.html

 

File photo courtesy Belarus Today

 

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