Abstract. In recent years, the Belarusian authorities have been quite active in pursuing multi-vector foreign policy. Belarusian interest in the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus remains purely pragmatic. The election campaign conducted by A. Lukashenko on an anti-Russian basis, clearly demonstrated the desire of the Belarus leader to slow down the integration process of the two countries. A sharp break with Russia remains too risky for the Belarusian elite for a number of economic, political and sociocultural reasons, but if the long-term trends that have been formed under A. Lukashenko rule are not changed, the process of the accelerating divergence of the trajectories of development for two states is obvious. The prospects for «deepening integration» (euphemism meaning the fulfillment of the signed Treaty on the Creation of the Union State of Russia and Belarus) remained uncertain until recently. Nevertheless, relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus have a strong economic foundation and obvious political potential. The question is in their effective activation.