Russia, Belarus to deepen integration amid Western sanctions

Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko hosted the joint press conference on Tuesday at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, Xinhua news agency reported citing Russia’s Sputnik News.

“We will continue to jointly oppose any attempts to slow down the development of our countries or artificially isolate them from the global economy,” Putin said.

On the other hand, Ukraine’s negotiating position at the peace talks with Russia remains unchanged, the head of the Ukrainian delegation David Arakhamia said on Tuesday.

“The Ukrainian side adheres to the Istanbul Communique and hasn’t changed its position,” Arakhamia wrote on Telegram.

The only difference is that the Ukrainian side does not take into account all the additional issues that were not included in the Istanbul Communique. This may have led to a misinterpretation of the current state of the negotiation process, he said.

Ukraine has tightened security measures on the borders with Belarus and Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, the Ukrinform news agency reported Tuesday.

“The security measures have been strengthened to prevent escalation in these areas,” Andriy Demchenko, the spokesman of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, was quoted as saying.

There is a possibility of a military invasion from Belarus to Ukraine, Demchenko said.

Ukraine’s gross domestic product will shrink by 45.1 per cent this year due to the conflict with Russia, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported on Monday, citing a recent World Bank report.

In its report, the bank has projected that the poverty rate in Ukraine will increase from 1.8 per cent in 2021 to 19.8 per cent in 2022.

The outlook for the global economy has darkened since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the World Trade Organisation said in its annual trade statistics and outlook report published on Tuesday.

Global gross domestic product at market exchange rates is projected by the WTO to grow by 2.8 per cent in 2022, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous forecast of 4.1 per cent. Growth is expected to pick up to 3.2 per cent in 2023, close to the average rate of 3.0 per cent between 2010 and 2019.