Pavel Latushka, Deputy Head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus, Head of the National Anti-Crisis Management, Ambassador
Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Parkhomchik recently admitted at a recent meeting with Lukashenko that sanctions, which are supposedly making Lukashenko’s regime stronger, have actually hurt wood pellet production in Belarus.
Before 2020, Belarus had established approximately 60 pellet production facilities, with a total capacity of about a million tons per year. Parkhomchik noted that these enterprises were created to meet the high demand for these products in Europe. However, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, supplies to Europe have been suspended. Unsurprisingly, Parkhomchik fails to explain the reasons behind this suspension or who is responsible. He conveniently overlooks the mass repressions in Belarus, the migration crisis on the EU borders, and the Lukashenko regime's complicity in Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Sanctions are also impacting cross-border payments processed by banks. This information comes not from Parkhomchik, but from a recent report by National Bank. Specifically, at the National Bank's initiative, commercial banks have begun advising corporate clients on navigating international settlements. To facilitate the evasion of financial sanctions, the National Bank has even established a dedicated working group to coordinate foreign economic settlements. Banks have also taken steps “to clear suspended payments, including using alternative systems for transmitting financial information or clearing mechanisms.”
One such system employed for conducting transactions is the Financial Message System of the Bank of Russia (SPFS). We have brought this to the attention of David O’Sullivan, the EU Special Representative for Sanctions, as a means of circumventing the imposed restrictions. Consequently, the EU, along with the G7 countries, is prepared to implement restrictions against SPFS in upcoming sanctions packages.
Chairman of the State Customs Committee, Vladimir Orlovsky, has gone even further by exposing all of Lukashenko’s schemes for illegally circumventing the existing sanctions. While Lukashenko and his officials claim they can do without trade with the West and will simply reorient towards the East, it appears they still heavily rely on Western goods and are willing to go to any lengths to obtain them.
Orlovsky revealed at a meeting of the Council of the Republic on April 10 that Lukashenko was compelled to sign a document implementing a series of anti-sanctions measures. This document "creates conditions for the possibility of selling goods, exported from the European Union to third countries in transit through Belarus, from temporary storage warehouses to Belarusian enterprises."
Orlovsky explains that, for instance, equipment is documented as being in transit from Europe to Asia but is then sold to a Belarusian enterprise within Belarus. He admits that current legislation does not allow for such sales, effectively acknowledging that Lukashenko’s regime is engaging in state-sponsored sanctions evasion, even violating its own laws. Orlovsky also shared that to circumvent sanctions, equipment is often imported in parts, utilizing complex, multi-stage logistics chains.
However, the most striking admission that sanctions are impacting the regime came from Lukashenko’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Valentin Rybakov. He labeled the sanctions against the Lukashenko regime as nothing short of an act of terrorism!
Despite the rhetoric from Lukashenko’s administration about the severe impact of sanctions, some so-called experts are attempting to argue that these sanctions are ineffective and should be abandoned altogether. The louder the regime officials complain about sanctions, the louder the calls to end them become.
We, however, will continue to collaborate with our international partners to strengthen sanctions pressure on Lukashenko’s criminal regime.