"The government at the moment is doing preliminary work. We have offers from Western partners and we have an offer from Russia," Belarussian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said after meeting his Russian counterpart, Viktor Zubkov. Earlier, Zubkov said Russia was "capable of offering the most pragmatic and safest way" of building a nuclear power plant.

Russia's ambassador to Belarus has said before Russia could provide a loan to cover the entire cost of the project.

Zubkov also said it would make sense to revisit a proposal to build a second gas export pipeline link to Europe through Belarus.

"It is probably expedient once again to revert to the question of constructing a second link, but to do that we will need to tally all resources," Zubkov said. Sidorsky said he estimated building the link could cost US$2-3 billion.

Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom has, however, abandoned the so-called Yamal-2 link across Belarus due to low demand in Poland. It is now focusing on a project to build a Baltic subsea export line to Germany called Nord Stream.

Last week, when Lukashenko announced plans for the nuclear plant, Belarus estimated the cost at between US$2.5 billion to $2.8 billion. That estimate has now risen to US$3.5 billion.

Russian nuclear technology dominates in those countries of the former Soviet bloc that use nuclear power.

Atomstroiexport, the building contractor arm of Russia's state atomic energy agency, had previously said that it was interested in building the nuclear station. But Belarussian media reported last week that the government was also looking at French and US firms.