“Argumenty i Fakty”: Belarus uses last chance of blackmailing Russia

Alyaksandr Lukashenka again burst into Russia’s political arena in late June, the “AiF” newspaper writes.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka gave an interview to western TV accusing the neightbours of an intention to destroy Belarusian independence, “bow and tighten the slipknot”.

Such emphasizing is usual for Lukashenka’s speeches: he supports Russia wholeheartedly, but receives attempts to offend him and take a sweet bite from the prosperous economy of the small but proud country. Moscow has been changing its approach towards Minsk for the last few years. It tries to take the slipknot off from Russia rather than tighten it. According to economists, for the last 15 years, Russia has spent 50 billion dollars of grants and preferences for Lukashenka’s government.

“Belarusian economy leans on three pillars,” thinks Dmitry Orlov, the director general of the Agency of Political and Economic Communication. “The first one is Russian sales markets for Belarusian goods. The second one is income from transit flows between Russia and the EU. The third one is cheap Russian energy, oil recycling and reselling oil at expensive European markets.”

Even getting cheap Russian resources, Belarus has a negative trade balance of 7 billion dollars last year. Belarus, the country with a big role of state in economy, has a total foreign debt of $22 billion with a $`17 billion budget.

“Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s recent emotional attacks,” the expert concludes, “were likely to be the last chance of aggressive bluffing, blackmailing and bargaining for Russian grants. When the Nord Stream and the Baltic Pipeline System-2 start operation, he won’t have any opportunities.