Energy, debt and more: what binds Belarus to Russia
Vladimir Putin broke the delay and decided to bet on Alexander Lukashenko's estate.
Last Thursday the most blatant move, when the Tsar said that he had made a "reserve of men" available to the Belarusian president in the event of a worsening of the crisis. In this detail far from trivial, Putin wanted to add to consider the elections on 9 August in Belarus' regular though not perfect, because not even God created a perfect world. "
On Sunday, therefore, after "warmly" wishing Lukashenko a birthday, the Russian president confirmed that he will meet him shortly in Moscow to "further strengthen the Russian-Belarusian alliance and expand mutually beneficial cooperation".
In a nutshell, for Putin, underpinning cooperation with Belarus means once again putting the costs of a highly unbalanced relationship on its back.
Russia absorbs 46.3% of Belarus' exports and supplies 54.2% of the country's imports.
Furthermore, Belarus is almost totally dependent on Russia for the supply of fuels for industrial and domestic use and the export of Belarus itself is largely made up of petroleum products of Russian origin refined in Belarus, which makes the country to all effects a "rentier state".
Russia provides subsidies of various kinds to Belarus, which amount to about 10% of Minsk's GDP and help to literally keep the public finances of the Lukashenko regime afloat.
Keeping Belarus standing will mean for Putin, first of all, opening the purse strings and then trying to get his economy out of the shallows of a disastrous period due not only to a badly managed Covid-19 emergency.
For at least 10 years, the Belarus economy has experienced some of the lowest growth rates on the European continent (+ 1.9% on average) with an overall deterioration trend.
2019 ended with a measly + 1.2% (the lowest among all 15 post-Soviet republics) and the forecasts for 2020 speak of -4%.
Faced with these figures, it is easy to expect that Lukashenko will show up in Moscow with his hat in hand, asking for leniency on a debt that is 48% in Russian hands for a total value of 7.92 billion dollars.
Lukashenko has already asked Moscow to refinance the $ 600 million debt owed to Russia in 2021. But on August 27, the Belarusian president provided different figures stating that he had found an agreement with Putin to refinance a Russian loan in Minsk from one billion dollars. "We have agreed with Russia that we will keep this billion dollars and it will be a good way to support our national currency," said Lukashenko.
According to the data of the first quarter of 2020 – recalled Ansa – 48% of the Belarusian foreign debt is towards Russia and amounts to 7.92 billion dollars.
Putin's generosity towards his protégé will manifest itself, however, above all by trying to restore the model that has seen Russia keep the Belarusian economy on its feet for over a quarter of a century by continuing to supply him with oil at dumped prices, without the normal duty at all. export, which Lukashenko then resells at higher prices on the market or sells in subsidiary form on the domestic market.
Belarus benefits twice, as Start Magazine explained in recent days : from low domestic gasoline prices and high surpluses, because most of the refinery's production is sold abroad.
Too bad that, with the price of oil hovering around $ 30 a barrel, Russian aid could prove insufficient to absorb social discontent and restore the social pact with which Belarusians have exchanged relative economic well-being and economic well-being for a quarter of a century. political immobility.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/energia-debito-e-non-solo-che-cosa-lega-la-bielorussia-alla-russia/ on Wed, 02 Sep 2020 06:20:43 +0000.