State Duma deputies: Russia won’t be milch cow for Lukashenka any more

Money allocated by Russia was pocketed by concrete Belarusian officials, Moscow believes.

The volume of deliveries of Russian oil to Belarus in January-October was reduced by 43% as compared to the same period of the last year, and was equal to 10 million tons.

After duty on oil delivered to Belarus was imposed, it became economically unsound to buy it in Russia. According to official forecast, the budget will short-receive $1.5-2 billion this year. Minsk will try to compensate for the losses by alternative deliveries from Venezuela, Iran and Azerbaijan, Radio Svaboda reports.

This year Russia agreed to deliver to Belarus 6 million 300,000 tons of oil free of duty, and 15 more million tons with 100% of duty included to the price. The Belarusian side categorically opposed such a formula, calling imposing export duties inside the Customs Union “a legal nonsense”. The Economic Court of the CIS, in which the Justice Ministry of Belarus filed a lawsuit against the Russian government, in fact let the matters drift, by calling upon the sides to resolve the conflict themselves.

Recently Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov stated that Moscow would cancel duties in case Minsk would pay in full to Russian budget the export duties for oil products exported from Belarus. He reminded that the duty is 55% of the duty rate for crude oil, and that means that Belarusian oil refineries are still receiving indirect donations. Shatalov noted that Russia does not want to subsidize Belarus any more, and believes that in such a situation it is better to invest money in modernization of Russian oil refineries.

The hopes for return of previous favourable conditions become more and more illusionary. The Chairman of Russia's State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots and the deputy chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Alexei Ostrovsky is convinced: the double dealing of the Belarusian leadership in fact leaves no chances for Russia’s staying “a milch-cow” for Belarus as before.

“Like other political forces in Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party, had been supporting Lukashenka for a long time and consistently, supported the Belarusian-Russian relations, not fully realizing that this person is playing a double game. Recently, when Russia had to review the size and types of financial aid, billion of dollars of which had been provided to Belarus for all these years, and thus creating a myth about a Belarusian economic miracle, we saw who is really sits there in official Minsk and how it is really called. Millions of people vote for the LDPR, and for other forces as well, and I think that to some extent leaders of political parties express their position too,” Alexei Ostrovsky underlined.