Lukashenko: Belarus is in Talks With Russia on S-400 Air Defence Systems

Earlier this week, Lukashenko met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for talks in Moscow. During the negotiations, the sides agreed on twenty-eight programmes for cooperation as part of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

Belarus plans to purchase Russian arms worth more than $1 billion that will be delivered to the country through 2025, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Sunday.

"I am very grateful to the Russian leadership, military and the Russian defence industry for agreeing on a whole list of weapons that will be here by 2025. It is, indeed, about a dozen planes ... some of them have already arrived. These are several dozen helicopters, TOR-M2...I will not name the total amount, although this is not a big secret, it is more than $1 billion", he added.

He added that Minsk has also been negotiating with Moscow for the supply of S-400 missile systems.

"We are in talks and planning the supplies of the S-400 [systems]", Lukashenko said, as quoted by the BelTA news agency.

Lukashenko also said that he was briefed by Putin during their talks in Moscow earlier this week about the more modern S-500 systems, which can destroy ballistic missiles.

The two presidents met in the Kremlin on Thursday and discussed bilateral programmes that are to be implemented as part of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, an organisation formed in 1999 to boost economic integration between the countries.