Lukashenka Heads Union State

On January 26, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus became head of the High State Council of the Union of Russia and Belarus. First Deputy Premier in the Russian Federation government, Mikhail Kasianov, became chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of the Russian Federation and Belarus, while the post of state secretary went to Pavel Borodin who earlier ran the office of the Russian President’s chief maintenance officer. After exchanging the instruments of ratification, Acting President of Russia Putin noted that “the treaty opens up the way to establishing the Union State, but this requires a well-elaborated legal basis and a single economic, defense, and humanitarian space.” Meanwhile, the President of Belarus said the Union State is “a special type of interstate formation hitherto unknown in history.”