Vladimir Makey, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Aliaksandr Lukashenka since the year 2012, and before that the head of the Lukashenka’s administration since the year 2008, died suddenly on November 26, 2022. Till now, the cause of death has not been announced, and that silence of the regime’s structures generated a lot of rumors around the matter.

Our House has decided to look attentively at everything that had been happening in the public sphere of the Belarusian regime and Belarusian propagandist media from November 16, 2022 and till the death of Makey, as such information can give some understanding about the layout and the influence of various actors inside the Belarusian regime.

Main tendencies that have been detected:

Since November 16, 2022 and until his death, Vladimir Makey did not appear on the regime’s news! The only place he appeared was the summit of CSTO in Yerevan. However, even there Stanislav Zas, Secretary General of CSTO before November 23, 2022, completely dominated the news, while Vladimir Makey was thoroughly pushed to the third plane by the regime’s mass media, who avoided mentioning him.

From November 16, 2022 (in fact even much earlier) and until the very death of Makey, an anomalously high presence of the Chair of the Council of the Republic, Natallia Kachanava, in the information space of the Belarusian regime has been observed. News about her were published up to several times a day on a variety of occasions.

Moreover, exactly one day before the death of Vladimir Makey, on November 25, 2022, Natallia Kachanava personally met Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, and conducted negotiations with him. The topic of the negotiations of Lavrov and Kachanava in the media was communicated in a very vague form: “about development of inter-parliamentary relations and steady intensification of multidimensional cooperation and integration ties” between Russia and the Belarusian regime.

All international affairs which normally fall within the sphere of influence and responsibility of Vladimir Makey were conducted by other officials. Meetings with foreigners were mostly held by the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Siarhei Aleinik. The second place for the frequency of meetings with foreign officials had the Chairman of the House of Representatives, Uladzimir Andreichanka. Makey was practically excluded from all those meetings.

November 16, 2022

An intergovernmental agreement on the export loan to Belarus in the amount of 105 billion Russian rubles for import substitution projects was signed. The corresponding document was signed by the heads of the ministries of finances of Belarus and Russia.

Within the framework of the Agreement, the import substitution cooperation will be implemented in the territory of the Republic of Belarus. Currently, both the parties have confirmed they are ready to start financing 12 projects.

In Moscow, a working meeting was held between Stanislav Zas, Secretary General of CSTO, Zhang Ming, Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee – CIS Executive Secretary, Sergei Lebedev. They discussed joint projects on international security issues of CSTO, SCO and CIS.

November 17, 2022

CEC of Belarus and Russia signed cooperation agreement. Actually, it is a renewed agreement, since the CEC of both countries have already had relationship fixed by an agreement. However, as the Central Election Commissions say, they hope that singing a new agreement will allow to take the cooperation to a new level.

November 21, 2022

The Belarusian regime took part at the AIPA ASEAN General Assembly in Cambodia.

Remarkably, it happened without participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus. Instead of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makey, the Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus, Valery Mitskevich, was present there.

November 22, 2022

Delegation of the Belarusian regime headed by the Prime Minister, Raman Halouchanka, visited Tehran (Iran) and Damask (Syria) from November, 22 to November, 24, 2022.

Raman Halouchanka held official talks with the Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, and also with the First Vice-President of the country, Mohammad Mokhber. In addition, the head of the government of the Belarusian regime had a meeting with the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, and the Prime Minister, Hussein Arnus.

The delegation also participated at the Belarusian-Iranian business forum, visited a number of Iranian enterprises, and held negotiations leading to the signing of cooperation agreements.

It is remarkable that the visit was also organized without Vladimir Makey!

The propagandist media of the Belarusian regime reported that the President of the National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba will visit Belarus in December. Again, all the negotiations were held by the Chairman of the House of Representatives, Uladzimir Andreichanka, without any participation of Vladimir Makey!

At the same time, Vladimir Makey called for corporate solidarity in CSTO and proposed to give up diplomatic language when discussing problems.

Vladimir Makey was expecting the CSTO summit in Yerevan, planned for November 23, 2022, to contribute decisively to the improvement of the organization.

November 23, 2022

Stanislav Zas, still in the role of the Secretary General of CSTO, announced that he saw an opportunity to establish full-scale cooperation in the CSTO-CIS-SCO triad.

The Secretary General of CSTO, Stanislav Zas said there was an urgent need to strengthen the military part of the organization.

“In the coming period, a number of tactical and tactical-special exercises are planned to be held with CSTO contingents, operational forces, which will include elements of peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, crisis and emergency response,” – said Stanislav Zas.

Stanislav Zas also talked about the discrediting of the most important peacekeeping institutions – the United Nations and the OSCE.

From Belarus, the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, Alexander Volfovich, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Makey, and the Defense Minister, Viktor Khrenin, took part in the joint meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Defense Ministers’ Council and the Collective Security Treaty Organization Security Council Secretary Committee.

The biggest part of the event was closed to the press. As the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Belarusian regime informs, there was a frank exchange of views on a huge variety of issues of regional and global security, as well as on the current military and political situation in the CSTO area of responsibility, during the meeting.

Stanislav Zas was awarded the Honorary Badge of the CSTO of the 1st degree. The decision was made on November, 23, at the summit of CSTO in Yerevan.

Receiving the award, Stanislav Zas thanked for a high appreciation of his work as a Secretary General. He underlined, that it was the last event of such high level in which he participated in that status, and that he will be succeeded by the representative of Kazakhstan, Imangali Tasmagambetov, starting from November 24, 2022.

November 24, 2022

The 11th meeting of the CIS Advisory Board on Inter-Regional and Trans-Border Cooperation took place in Mogilev. Chair of the Council on Interregional and Cross-Border Cooperation between the CIS member states, Deputy Chair of the Mogilev Regional Executive Committee, Ruslan Strakhar, presided over the meeting. He said that interregional and cross-border cooperation is an effective tool for strengthening the ties between the CIS countries.

The event brought together members of the Advisory Board of CIS, a delegation of the Republic of Uzbekistan. A number of states participated in the meeting in the regime of a video conference. There was no word about Vladimir Makey.

After the meeting held in Minsk with the Minister of Public Security of Vietnam, Tô Lâm, the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, Alexander Volfovich, informed the propagandist media that the Belarusian regime and Vietnam have similar views on challenges and threats that influence security in the world.

At her meeting with Valentina Matviyenko in Moscow, Natallia Kachanava made a statement that parliamentarians of Russia and the Belarusian regime should resist together the unprecedented attack of the West.

The parliamentary delegation of Belarus headed by Natallia Kachanava met the Chair of the Russian Federal Assembly’s Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, during their official visit to Moscow on November 24-25. Natallia Kachanava came to Moscow by invitation of Matvienko.

Valentina Matvienko assured Natallia Kachanava that Aliaksandr Lukashenka is highly appreciated and respected in Russia.

“I ask you to pass him our gratitude for his personal involvement, attention to the interparliamentary cooperation between our countries, for his support of interregional cooperation. I know, that he is personally involved in this matter and holds regular meetings with governors and regional delegations. Of course, we too, as parliamentarians, make our huge contribution,” said Valentina Matvienko.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Yuri Ambrazevich, took part in the Responsible Business Forum organized by the UN Global Compact Network Belarus, were he said that partnership between the business and the Belarusian regime “is important for resolution of social and economic issues”.

The Council of the Republic and the Federation Council signed cooperation agreement.

November 25, 2022

Vladimir Makey had a meeting with Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Ante Josić, where the Belarusian regime and the Vatican confirmed their desire to strengthen the dialogue.

A meeting between the  Chairman of the House of Representatives, Uladzimir Andreichanka with the President of the Pan-African Parliament, Fortune Charumbira, where it was stated that the objectives of the Belarusian regime and African countries include peace, development, improvement of well-being of citizens, was held.

Natallia Kachanava and Sergey Lavrov discussed inter-parliamentary relations of the two countries.

As the media said, “a discussion was held about a wide circle of issues of bilateral relations and interaction in the international arena with an emphasis on the development of inter-parliamentary relations”. The meeting confirmed the mutual desire for progressive strengthening of multidimensional cooperation and integration links between our fraternal countries.” Makey was not present at the meeting in Moscow.

Natallia Kachanava was gifted a portrait of her in Moscow. The portrait was painted by anonymous but “famous art figures of Russia”.

November 26, 2022

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makey, suddenly died. The cause of death was not revealed.

It is followed by a stream of condolence messages, and it is communicated that the visit of Lavrov in Minsk, planned for November, 27-28, was postponed due to death of Vladimir Makey.

Since then, all communications in the propagandist media of the Belarusian regime regarding the foreign affairs of Belarus have been put on hold, obviously till the appointment of a new Foreign Minister.