Uralkhim’s owner will be Belarus’ vice-Prime Minister?

A Russian businessman Dzmitry Mazepin may be appointed Belarus’ vice-Prime Minister in the coming days.

RBC reports about that with a reference to a source in Lukashenka’s administration.

According to the source, Mazepin, who’s wealth accounts for $1.7 billion as calculated by Forbes, will be responsible for the issues of financial and economic relations with the main external contractor of Belarus – Russia. So it is the matter of creation of an additional position of a vice-Prime Minister in the government.

The media explains the choice of Mazepin with the information that soon an agreement will be reached between Russian Sberbank and Belarus’ government about issuing a loan to Belarus in the amount of $3 billion at a preferential rate for paying for Russian energy resources.

It is notable that the key organizers and manager of the deal was Uralkhim, which is de-facto controlled by Mazepin. And the guarantor for the credit will be a Belgian financial corporation Fortis, which is a part of the financial group BNP Paribas, which in turn refused to cooperate with Belarus because of the EU and USA’s sanctions.

Before the appointment to the position, Mazepin, born in Minsk, will be given a Belarusian citizenship provided by a special decree.

Charter97.org website contacted the Moscow office of RBC agency. The agency says the information about the appointment of Mazepin was published by the RBC Ukrainian office, but was later refuted by Uralkhim company. Kyiv journalists removed the initial text about a possible Minsk visit by the Uralkhim head.

Dzmitry Mazepin was born in Minsk in 1968. In 1985 he graduated from Suvorov military college in Minsk, and then he studied to become a military interpreter. In 1986-1988 he took military service in Afghanistan. In 1992 he graduated from the economic faculty of MGIMO. At the beginning of 1990-ies he participated in the creation of the insurance company Infistrakh and the bank Falcon. In 1996 he founded the company Belnafta, which dealt with trading on oil products. In 1999-2002 he worked as a deputy chairman and the first deputy chairman of the Russian Foundation for Federal Properrty. In 2002-2003 he was the president of the company Sibur. From 2007 onwards he has been the chairman of the board of the chemical company Uralkhim.