'This Has Never Happened Before In Belarusian History'

Any upheaval in Russia will ricochet into the regime.

Western media write about serious economic problems that may await Russia. How vulnerable is the Belarusian economy today if problems begin in the Russian Federation? Charter97.org spoke to economist and political commentator Dzmitry Balkunets about this:

— Belarus is very tied to Russia in trade relations, exports to the Russian market today reach 70%. This, of course, creates significant threats to the Belarusian economy, to the Belarusian ruble and to economic stability in general. Any turmoil in Russia will ricochet into the regime's economy.

For Russia, of course, the situation is also not very good in every sense. The Russian Federation is cut off from supply channels, including technologies, of various international markets. The Kremlin loses the opportunity to sell something freely and it is to use some secondary schemes to enter world markets. Belarus also fell into this dependence, becoming a kind of appendage.

But at the same time, Belarus is now making some money on the sanctions policy, because overland logistics routes to the Russian market from Europe go through the country. This allows Belarus to even act as a mediator in some respects and make money on it.

— In connection with economic problems, strange decrees of Lukashenka have already appeared. For example — that the executive committees will approve the heads of private enterprises. What else can we expect from the regime if the economy begins to crumble?

— The plan to appoint leaders of private enterprises is truly an unprecedented model. This has never happened before in Belarusian history. It seems to me that Lukashenka wants to finally kill small business in the regions. It is completely unclear how this is justified. Perhaps he just wants to prevent some freethinking in private companies.

Lukashenka is also going to conduct a "world experiment" on price regulation, as he said that no one in the world has done this. It will end the same as it did in the Soviet years — with a deficit, higher prices or some other cataclysms. All these experiments of Lukashenka end sadly. But this, of course, also creates a burden for employees of the state apparatus, who are forced to carry out its instructions.

The other day, Lukashenka announced that he plans to give some new powers to the heads of district executive committees so that they have less bureaucracy. I do not think that he will succeed again, because when he endows someone with something, three more bosses appear from above. Therefore, I do not expect anything from him, I only expect the situation to worsen, because this person is not able to come up with anything new. He can only make things worse.

— During our discussion, you mentioned an effective sanctioning strategy against the Russian Federation: blocking the straits to Russian ships. The West began to act differently, imposing sanctions against tankers. There is already information about dozens of tankers stranded at sea. Would this be a feasible strategy?

— In some part, the actions that have been taken against several tens or hundreds of ships carrying Russian oil products can achieve the result. Or they can block a strait, use the blockade of ships. It seems to me that it is cheaper and easier to block the strait or impose a naval blockade, which, for example, was actively used in the 19th century during the war. For example, Napoleon blocked Great Britain, it was blocked for more than a year, no ship left Great Britain or entered Great Britain, no ships even left the port. This weakened the countries. In the 20th century, it was also used many times.

If today the countries agreed and adopted such tactics (and this does not require any sanctions policy), this would have a very serious result. I recently read that some countries are just planning to inspect ships that pass through their straits. If the search is long enough, it can be a kind of blocking. This makes Russia vulnerable.

Russia plans to hold regular military exercises on the territory of Belarus this year, the same as they were in 2021 and on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In my opinion, how can these exercises be prevented? Here they need to use some non-standard methods and levers, including blocking the transit of all goods.

It is necessary to set strict conditions: there should be no exercises on the territory of Belarus. And let them choose what is more important for them – trade or exercises. But no one has raised such a question yet, because European countries continue to trade with them without thinking about their security. In my opinion, in the current situation, the issue of security should come first, and trade should come second. These issues require discussion.

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