OREANDA-NEWS  The Presidents of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, will discuss gas prices during a personal meeting, such an issue is on the agenda. This was stated by the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov.

He recalled that last week Lukashenka made a public criticism, stating that there was a delay in creating a single gas market. Now, Peskov stressed, he will be able to directly explain what he sees as a way out of the current situation.

At the same time, the Kremlin representative stressed that, in general, Belarus enjoys "absolutely unique preferential conditions in terms of gas." As for the assumptions that Minsk will make concessions on gas in exchange for military assistance, Peskov suggested not to pay attention to such "newspaper ducks".

At the end of last week, Lukashenko said that the creation of a common gas market between Russia and Belarus is slow, specific measures have not been implemented, all deadlines have already been disrupted.

This statement was the sharpest on the topic in the last two years. Before the mass protests over his next re-election in 2020, Lukashenko allowed himself to sharply criticize Russia's position on gas prices for Belarus. In May 2020, he demanded to know why Germany, in the year of the 75th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, buys gas from Russia twice cheaper than Belarus.

In June of this year, it became known that Belarus was delaying payments for gas, hoping for a revision of the pricing formula or a fall in the exchange rate of the Russian ruble.