Putin Says There's No Plan to Unite Russia, Belarus in One State

(Bloomberg) -- There are no plans to unite Russia and Belarus into a single state, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“Today, there is absolutely no basis for uniting the states,” Putin said Friday during a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, in response to a question on whether a merger was being considered as his last consecutive presidential term ends in 2024. “We don’t have such plans or aims,” he said.

The creation of a new state by uniting Russia and Belarus might be a potential way to sidestep the constitutional ban on Putin seeking another term, three people close to the Kremlin said in April. While the two countries have formed a so-called Union State to promote greater cooperation and integration, Putin’s become increasingly impatient with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and worried that he may try to slip out of Moscow’s orbit, the people said.

Lukashenko told a security conference in the Belarus capital, Minsk, late last year that North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion close to Russia’s borders was pushing Belarus into the Kremlin’s arms, according to two people who attended the meeting.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow at skravchenko@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Torrey Clark

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