Russia and Belarus will sign an agreement on mutual security guarantees in the interest of both parties, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today, quoted by Reuters, writes BTA.
The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, will participate in today's meeting of the Supreme Council of the Union State in Minsk, hosted by his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko. The meeting marks the 25th anniversary of the Union State - a visa-free union between the two former Soviet republics.
"This is an initiative with absolute equality," Peskov said on the occasion of the contract, quoted by RIA Novosti. "The logic in the development of events dictates the need for such a document," he added.
Putin approved last month an updated Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the possibility of a nuclear strike and increasing the "nuclear umbrella" of Moscow over strategic ally Belarus, Reuters points out.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, nuclear weapons were exported from Belarus, but last year Putin announced that Russia was deploying tactical nuclear-tipped missiles there as a deterrent to the West.
Lukashenko, who has been in power in Belarus since 1994, said in October this year that the use of Russian nuclear weapons in his country requires his personal permission, Reuters notes.