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President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko: Mr President, as was agreed, we stick to our arrangements made in the beginning of this year. This is not our last meeting this year, since we are also scheduled to meet in Astana, and later in Moscow. The year always ends with EAEU meetings.

Welcome to the Mogilev land. Since I have known you for quite a while, I can see that you feel quite at home here. I could go as far as call this place a parcel of Russian land in eastern Belarus, since as I have already said, this is a Russian, rather than a Belarusian city. We are delighted to have you here.

A lot has been done for the Forum of Regions. You are welcome to come here any time you want. To some extent, this is also my hometown. I have already told you that this is where I wondered around in my younger years, barefoot, this is where I went to school and got a job. So I hold very warm memories about this city.

Should you ever agree or express a wish to come here, I will always be there to welcome you so that you feel at home, just as you do when welcoming us in St Petersburg.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, thank you very much for this kind invitation, as well as for your traditional hospitality and wonderful arrangements for our work. This time, we meet with our colleagues from the regions of Russia and Belarus.

It is true that this is a marvellous, tidy and beautiful city. I had a chance to admire it as we drove to this meeting.

I would like to thank the local residents for their hospitality. We can feel that we are welcome here. I would like to thank the municipal authorities for their efforts to keep the city so lovely and clean. We can see that the roads and the overall infrastructure are all in a very good state.

I have no doubt that the next few days will be very fruitful. In fact, our mutual efforts to promote this work from the top will only succeed if accompanied by effective efforts by our colleagues in the Russian and Belarusian regions. There are many direct contacts that are quite efficient.

I am delighted to see you once again. You were right to say that we have several meetings of this kind ahead of us this year, but our relations are even more than that. We are constantly in contact with one another. This is another milestone for our cooperation, and a very interesting and useful one.

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