section_path: Presidency/Foreign policy/Russia
section_name: Russia
paragraph_text: Russia
  
  In the 1990s, Lukashenko and the then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin envisaged the formation of a Union State. Yeltsin suffered from poor health and alcoholism, which induced Lukashenko into thinking that he would lead both states. But After Yeltsin anointed Putin as his successor, Lukashenko stalled the merger.
  
  Lukashenko's relationship with Russia, once his powerful ally and vocal supporter, has significantly deteriorated. The run-up to the 2010 Belarusian presidential election was marked by a series of Russian media attacks on Lukashenko. Throughout July state-controlled channel NTV broadcast a multi-part documentary entitled "The Godfather" highlighting the suspicious disappearance of the opposition leaders Yury Zacharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasouski and journalist Dzmitry Zavadski during the late 1990s. Lukashenko called the media attack "dirty propaganda".
  
  Despite a historically good relationship with Russia, tensions between Lukashenko and the Russian government started showing in 2020. On 24 January 2020, Lukashenko publicly accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of trying to make Belarus a part of Russia. This led to Russia cutting economic subsidies for Belarus. In July 2020, the relationship between Belarus and Russia was described as "strained" after 33 Russian military contractors were arrested in Minsk.
  
  Lukashenko afterwards accused Russia of collaborating with opposition activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski and trying to cover up an attempt to send 200 fighters from a private Russian military firm known as the Wagner Group into Belarus on a mission to destabilize the country ahead of its 9 August presidential election. On 5 August 2020, Russia's security chief Dmitry Medvedev warned Belarus to release the contractors. Lukashenko also claimed Russia was lying about its attempts to use the Wagner Group to influence the upcoming election.
  
  On 11 November 2021, Lukashenko raised the possibility of interrupting the Yamal–Europe pipeline carrying Russian gas to the European Union if the bloc imposes further sanctions on Belarus. Putin said that Lukashenko had not consulted him before raising the possibility of stopping gas deliveries coming from Russia to the EU via a pipeline through Belarus, adding that such a move would risk harming ties between Belarus and Russia.
  
  In February 2022, Lukashenko permitted Russian forces to stage part of the invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory. Commenting on the war in Ukraine Lukashenko has said that he didn't expect the conflict “drag on this way.” In June 2023, Lukashenko claimed that "the only mistake we made’ was not finishing off Ukraine with Russia in 2014". In August 2024, Lukashenko urged both Russia and Ukraine to start peace negotiations, saying in an interview with Russian state television: "Neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need it. It’s them in the West, who need." He accused the West of supporting Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk region.