Russia will drastically slash the price it charges Belarus for natural gas next year, the country's president Alexander Lukashenko said Wednesday in comments carried by Interfax news agency, AFP reports.
He also said that Russia had agreed to cut the price it charges Belarus for gas by as much as two-thirds.
"It will be a falling price. From Jan. 1, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2009 it will drop by two-and-a-half to three times, and through the year as a whole the price will be acceptable to us," he was quoted as saying.
"Belarus is grateful to the Russian side, and we will not remain in its debt," Lukashenko added, without elaborating.
Monday Interfax cited a Kremlin spokeswoman as saying that Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and Lukashenko have agreed on the principles for supplies of Russian natural gas to Belarus in 2009 at negotiations Monday.
Russian media reports have said that Moscow pressured Minsk to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia in exchange for a better deal on gas prices.