President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko spoke about agreements with President of Russia Vladimir Putin on further joint participation in space exploration. The question about Belarus's plans in this area was asked to the head of state by an employee of the "Legmash" plant in Orsha, BELTA correspondent reports.

Regarding the continuation of flights, there is an agreement that the Russian side, if necessary, can include representatives of Belarus among the cosmonauts who will undergo not accelerated training, but permanent training with long-term tasks and a program. "Putin and I agreed: please, he says, we are ready to include you among the cosmonauts," the head of state said. - If someone wants to, please. We agreed with the Russians on a competition. If you pass the competition, you will train in the cosmonaut group. This is hard work, with great risk. But, of course, it is popular."

Alexander Lukashenko also mentioned Russia's plans to build its own orbital station. "The Russians are starting to build, Putin told me about this, their own space station. Now it is international, where our cosmonaut flew. And they will build their own. The President of Russia said: if you want, join us, we will do it together. As far as possible. We will think about it. If our smart people decide on this, we will participate. But this is not the main thing for us either. We need to preserve our own sector."

In this regard, the head of state explained that Belarus has had its niche in the space industry since Soviet times. This includes various satellites, microelectronics. "We produce a lot for space, especially now. Starting from microelectronics, chips, helping our space industry, which remained in Russia. In Soviet times, we did a lot, from instruments to the skin of spacecraft," he said. - We made and are making good Earth remote sensing satellites, we can make communication satellites, and so on. This is our niche. We are working and will continue to work in this direction. Plus microelectronics. We have carefully preserved our production."

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