Senator Dmitry Mezentsev, Head of the economic committee of Russia’s Federation Council, who was appointed Ambassador to Belarus in late April, will apply for the early resignation on May, 29.
“I am leaving for Minsk on June 2,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting of the committee, RIA Novosti reports.
According to Mezentsev, he is being involved in the preparatiosn for a concert on the occasion of the Day of Russia that will take place on June, 12 in Minsk.
Last week, Dmitry Mezentsev said that he would arrive in Belarus in late May. He expected that the issue of his early resignation in connection with his appointment to the new position might be considered on May, 22.
On April 30, Mikhail Babich , a former ambassador of Russia to Belarus, was relieved from the post of Russian envoy in Minsk, which came as a surprise. On the same day, it became known that Dmitry Mezentsev would replace him.
Babich was a KGB officer in the Soviet times; under Putin’s rule he started serving in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). In August 2018, he was appointed not only Ambassador of Russia, but also Vladimir Putin‘s special representative in Belarus. His objective was to bring integration to a new level, both in the economic and political field. The Belarusian authorities apprehensively welcomed Babich. But in less than a year, the envoy was recalled.
Mikhail Babich is notorious for having a hand in the Crimean issue; he manned the embassy in Minsk with the people who were involved in the annexation of the peninsula. Unlike its predecessor Alexander Surikov, Babich demonstratively paid visits to Belarusian enterprises, engaged in controversies against the Belarusian Foreign Ministry and even president Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Babich’s actions in the field of information fuelled the new crises in the Belarusian-Russian relations.
