A. Lukashenko ordered to block the transit of Russian gas through Belarus

June 22, Minsk / Vladimir Matveev - BELTA /. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has ordered to block the transit of Russian gas through Belarus. The head of the Belarusian state announced this today at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Minsk, BELTA correspondent reports. According to Alexander Lukashenko, as of today, Gazprom owes Belarus $260 million for gas transit. "I have now ordered the government to block transit through Belarus until Gazprom pays for transit. They haven't paid us a penny for these six months. To what cynicism and absurdity can one go, when you owe me $260 million, I owe you $190 million, and you start turning off the valve for me because of this," the head of state said. He stressed that the problem is not that Belarus is not fulfilling the contract. "It is they who are not fulfilling the contract. We kept silent, we didn't talk about it, they mumbled something through their press secretary that we were not signing something, and so on," the President said. /To be continued/. -0-