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MOSCOW, 14 March (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia are successfully weathering the sanctions, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he addressed the Federation Council during his official visit to the Russian Federation, BelTA has learned.
“To be honest, the sanctions were a blessing in disguise for us. And for Russia too. Thus, we turned the tables against those who introduced them. They created a lot of challenges, but they made us work harder. In just three years, we have built the contours of industrial and technological sovereignty for decades to come. We have finally figured out what we need,” the Belarusian leader said.
One example is aircraft manufacturing: “We have seen the flaws that we did not see before. We bought Boeings, Airbuses, and other things. But we disregarded the most advanced aviation industry. When these [imports] became unavailable, we realized that we had to do things on our own. It is difficult. Not easy.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that the Union State is running promising import-substituting investment projects. Their implementation allows substituting critical imports and manufacturing high-tech products. The Belarusian company BelAZ has produced a 45-tonne dump truck with a Russian-made engine. It consumes 2 times less fuel, and its emissions into the atmosphere are 10 times lower. Joint work is currently underway to produce a 90-tonne gas-powered dump truck.
“The Union State Machine Tool project (its name speaks for itself) provides for producing machine tools from components manufactured exclusively in Belarus and Russia. The competencies of our enterprises are distributed, the first batch of products got good reviews, there is demand. In Soviet times, Belarus was a center of machine tool engineering. We have preserved all these enterprises. And today we make machine tools thanks to Russian investments. We were able to quickly mobilize and recover,” noted Aleksandr Lukashenko.
An ambitious project to create a joint light aircraft has also been launched. “Belarus will have it very soon. For us, aircraft manufacturing is a new branch of the economy,” the president said.
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