/ world today news/ The year 2023 in Belarus continued and strengthened the trends that arose after the political crisis of 2020: life under sanctions, continuation of the sluggish confrontation with the West, strengthening of the military-political alliance with Russia. Belarus has quite successfully adapted to the new geopolitical realities, while at the same time managing to remain an island of calm amid rising tensions in Eastern Europe.
Life under sanctions
For three years, Belarus has been living under Western sanctions, which began to be introduced in the fall of 2020. Three packages of sanctions were adopted, which included Belarusian enterprises, banks and individuals, which the EU accused of supporting and financing the “Lukashenko regime . “
However, the issue does not end with three packages of sanctions. In the summer of 2021, after the Belarusian authorities landed a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius at Minsk airport to detain Roman Protasevich (former editor of the extremist channel Nexta, banned in Russia) who was on board, the national carrier Belavia was attacked, and the European skies were closed to her.
In addition, leasing companies began recalling aircraft that had been in service at Bellavia, which lost half of its fleet as a result.
Western airlines also refused to use the airspace of the republic for the flights of their planes. Finally, Lithuania and Latvia, taking advantage of the situation, blocked the transit of Belarusian exports through their ports, despite the fact that this decision affected the economic interests of the Baltic republics themselves.
In addition, the procedure for obtaining Schengen visas for Belarusian citizens has become significantly more complicated. By 2020, Belarus was the world leader in their number per capita.
However, the Belarusian economy has generally withstood the sanctions pressure without much damage to itself. The socio-economic destabilization that the architects of the sanctions were counting on did not happen.
The Belarusian economy turned out to be less dependent on ties with the European Union than they expected in Brussels. Exports from Belarus to the EU were mainly raw materials – petroleum products from Russian hydrocarbons and potash fertilizers. Food and a number of other goods were delivered to Europe in small quantities.
The Belarusian IT sector was primarily focused on the United States and the European Union, which were estimated to have contributed up to 7% of the national GDP on the eve of the crisis in 2020. However, the importance of this industry also turned out to be highly overrated and exaggerated.
Belarus has access to cheap Russian energy resources; most of the products of local enterprises are also delivered to the Russian Federation. In addition, in the conditions of import substitution, new niches have opened up for Belarusian producers on the Russian market.
In addition, Belarus was able to successfully redirect its export flows to the Russian ports of the Leningrad Oblast and Murmansk. S
according to the Ambassador of Belarus to Russia, Dmitry Krutoy, in the next two to three years, Russian ports will finally replace foreign ones for Belarusian carriers.
Russian nuclear weapon in Belarus
Perhaps the main event of 2023 in Belarus was the appearance of Russian nuclear weapons here. It is hard to underestimate this event. For the first time since 1991, Russia is not withdrawing its weapons, but is once again deploying them in Eastern Europe.
Soviet nuclear weapons were previously located on the territory of Belarus, but were withdrawn to Russia in 1994. Subsequently, A.G. Lukashenko has repeatedly publicly regretted this decision.
The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a natural response to the geopolitical expansion of Euro-Atlantic structures in Eastern Europe and the confrontation in Ukraine.
For Belarus itself, this is also a turning point that demonstrates the final break with the previous multi-vector foreign policy course of official Minsk with its desire to balance between Russia and the collective West and claims of neutral status.
The Russian nuclear umbrella over Belarus definitely means that Moscow and Minsk are in the same geopolitical boat. According to A. G. Lukashenko himself, the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons finally ended in the fall of last year.
Tension on the Western Borders
Against this background, the escalation of tension on the border of Belarus with the EU countries – Poland, Lithuania and Latvia – continued.
Western neighbors continue to systematically cut ties with Belarus. In 2023, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia closed a significant part of the border crossing points on the Belarusian border.
Currently, two out of every six border posts on the border with Poland, four out of six on the border with Lithuania and one out of two on the border with Latvia are operating.
Belarus’s western neighbors justify such measures as protection against the trafficking of illegal immigrants who are supposed to come from its territory.
Following the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons and Wagner PMC fighters to Belarus, Poland announced the creation of a new 10,000-strong military group in the eastern voivodships bordering Belarus.
In general, Lithuania and Poland are actively escalating the topic of military threats coming from Belarus, primarily for the so-called Suvalki corridor. Apparently, this is done in order to increase NATO troops in the region.
Against this background, a true spy mania is unfolding in Lithuania, the victim of which is the 60,000-strong Belarusian diaspora living in this country. These are people who, for the most part, left Belarus after 2020 and can hardly be called loyal to the “Lukashenko regime”.
However, Belarusians are increasingly viewed with suspicion in Lithuania, as potential or actual agents of the Belarusian special services. In addition, confiscation of residence permits and deportations began, the victims of which are those who once served in the Belarusian security forces or worked in the nuclear power industry.
Belarus reacts in two ways to the constant attacks from its western neighbors. On the one hand, Minsk constantly reminds that it is not the initiator of the confrontation and calls for the restoration of pragmatic good-neighborly relations.
In this regard, Belarus places certain hopes on the results of the elections for the Polish Sejm and the formation of a ruling coalition headed by Donald Tusk. However, these hopes turned out to be in vain, and the new government has already made it clear that it will continue the course of its predecessors without fundamental changes.
Belarus also extended the visa-free regime for citizens of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. With this step, Minsk emphasizes that it is not interested in a confrontation and transfers the responsibility for it to Warsaw, Vilnius and Riga. In addition, in this way, Belarus is trying to win the support of public opinion in neighboring countries.
At the same time, Minsk cannot ignore objective threats coming from the West. If in Lithuania they like to talk about the danger of Belarusian KGB agents infiltrating the local Belarusian diaspora, the opposite is also true.
Belarusians living in Lithuania and Poland are being recruited by Western intelligence services in order to sabotage and destabilize the situation in Belarus and the territory of the Union State as a whole.
The head of the KGB of Belarus, Ivan Tertel, recently spoke about these threats. According to him, seven so-called “flags” are currently operating in Poland, which are preparing for terrorist attacks and the seizure of objects on Belarusian territory.
The recent sabotage of BAM’s Severomui tunnel by a citizen of Belarus at the behest of Lithuania suggests that this threat is by no means illusory and should be taken seriously.
Thus, despite the external stability and calmness, Belarus remains in the zone of serious challenges and threats caused by its geopolitical situation.
Despite the fact that the collective West is now focused on other areas, the task of destabilizing and geopolitically reorienting Belarus has not been removed from the agenda. Belarus remains the last missing link in the anti-Russian “sanitary cordon” along the Baltic-Black Sea arc. Countering these threats will be the main task for the coming years.
Translation: SM
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