Earlier, Moscow forgave Belarus $ 471 million of foreign debt.
The total losses of Russia to support the Belarusian economy over the past 25 years, during which the country is ruled by Alexander Lukashenko, amount to at least $ 98.7 billion in nominal terms, and taking into account inflation, in prices of 2019 – $ 116.1 billion, Chronicle.info reports. with a link to the Browser.
This is stated in the calculations, which were published by the Russian website “Open Media” on Friday, September 11.
What does this amount consist of:
- 1.5 years after taking office as President, Lukashenko received the first gift from Russia – the cancellation of debts under various agreements for $ 1.4 billion;
Including the Kremlin “forgiven” Belarus $ 471 million of foreign debt.
- low gas prices for Belarus led to losses of $ 40 billion for Russia;
- when purchasing Beltransgaz (which manages gas pipelines in Belarus), Gazprom overpaid at least $ 1.5 billion ;
- Russia has lost more than $ 50 billion in oil trading.
At first, Belarus “forgot” to return export duties to the Russian budget, then Lukashenka, year after year, agreed on preferential oil supplies according to different schemes;
- loss of $ 3.5 billion caused by the export of oil under the guise of duty-free “solvents and thinners” and the uncontrolled import of duty-free Belarusian cigarettes within the “common customs area of the Russian Federation and Belarus.”
“At the current exchange rate, $ 116.1 billion is more than ₽8.7 trillion, or 42% of the RF budget planned for 2020,” the website calculated.
Not the whole amount of losses
The site claims that this is not the full amount that the Kremlin has cost to support Lukashenko’s presidency.
- Firstly, the assessment includes losses only from more or less easily assessable directions, but there are also other economically disadvantageous stories for Russia.
- Secondly, Lukashenko is still in power, which means that the account of Russia’s losses will continue to increase.
According to the newspaper’s estimates, if the Kremlin refused to sponsor Lukashenka’s regime, then over the past 10 years, the budget of 7 regions of Russia, which border on Belarus, would increase by 84% .
