The EU sanctions pressure on Russia and Belarus has almost reached its peak by now
Each new package of restrictions is given to the European Union with great difficulties, without producing, in fact, any of the expected effects. Moreover, the rabid Russophobia has become one of the main reasons for the growing problems not only on the European continent, but also worldwide, and the new restrictions on Minsk and Moscow adopted in early June could cause a global economic and humanitarian disaster. An important role in this case is played by the application of restrictions against Belarus, which since the start of Russia’s special military operation (SSR) in Ukraine, Western countries have automatically included it in the anti-Russian sanctions package.
Official Minsk has been living under sanctions pressure for more than a year now. The West has always believed that the Belarusian political regime should not feel at ease, as it does not lend itself to full control by Brussels and Washington. Therefore, many enterprises in the republic, as well as many officials and businessmen, have been feeling the Western pressure in one way or another over the past decades.
This has been particularly difficult for Belarus since the presidential election of August 2020, when the EU, the US and their satellites began to impose one package of sanctions after another, eventually restricting virtually all areas of the Belarusian economy. Even the restrictive measures imposed over the last few months, which the West formally attributes to Minsk’s “complicity” in Russia’s ESR in Ukraine, have not had as devastating an impact as what has been happening in 2020-2021. Therefore, throughout the spring of this year, Minsk looked rather calmly at the hysteria of Europe and the United States, knowing full well that it would be unlikely to do more damage than the West had managed to do before.
As is known, on June 3, the European Union introduced a new package of sanctions against Russia, the sixth in the current year, which traditionally included Belarus. It was extremely difficult for Brussels because it concerned the issue of supplies of Russian oil and oil products. As a result of long negotiations, a rather strange document was adopted that preserved the possibility for Russia to continue working on the continent’s oil market, but created serious political tensions in the EU itself. The main feature of the sanctions was an embargo on Russian oil and petroleum products, postponed for six and eight months respectively. At the same time, a number of European countries have been removed from the sanctions altogether, as have transport ships carrying “black gold” from the Russian Federation. All other restrictions affecting politicians, businessmen, luxury goods and the disconnection of Sberbank from SWIFT have hardly puzzled Moscow, where the reaction to the sanctions has been more than calm. The Kremlin is well aware that the current restrictions are practically the limit of what the West can do, and the seventh package announced by Poland could send the EU into the Middle Ages if it touches the gas issue.
At the same time, the latest EU sanctions cannot be described as completely futile insofar as they relate to Belarus. However, the outlook here is not so much for Minsk, but for the EU and the rest of the world, due to a number of related factors in the global economy and the system of international relations. In essence, nothing changes for Belarus, except for the attitude to the Western partners, with whom the Belarusian capital has tried to establish relations so far.
In particular, twelve Belarusian individuals and eight Belarusian legal entities were included in the EU’s sixth package. Notably, the restrictions are not officially imposed because of the situation in Ukraine, as it is announced in the case of Russia. The main reason is the continued repression of the Belarusian opposition, the existence of political prisoners, as well as the violation of human rights and freedoms. At the same time, the declared humanism of the European policy in this case looks ridiculous, at least, taking into account the desire to destroy the Belarusian economy and put the majority of the population on the brink of survival.
The current European restrictions, which were accompanied by US sanctions, mostly affect Belarusian businessmen, who are said to be close to Alexander Lukashenko, representatives of law enforcement agencies, members of the Central Election Commission, prosecutors and judges. All this had happened before, and therefore passed practically unnoticed by official Minsk. Even the response of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry was very brief, repeating all the previous statements of the ministry on the sanction pressure on the republic, which speaks more about the disappointment of the official Minsk with the position of the West than about its serious reaction to what is happening.
The Belarusian authorities were not frightened by the sanctions against some Belarusian organizations, as most of them had already been virtually barred from the European market. Thus, Belarusian Development and Reconstruction Bank Belinvestbank will be disconnected from the SWIFT system as of June 14, while Belteleradiocompany, cigarette makers Inter Tobacco and Grodno Tobacco Factory Neman got under sanctions, Naftan oil refining company, Belkommunmash Holding Management Company, Beltamozhservice, as well as Belaruskali and Belarusian Potash Company (BPC) are under sanctions. Later it became known that Japan imposed sanctions against Belinvestbank and New Zealand imposed sanctions against six Belarusian defense enterprises. All of these restrictions are rather ceremonial, except for the situation around Belaruskali and BPC.
It is worth reminding that Belarus provides about 20 percent of the world’s supplies of potash fertilizers, directly affecting the situation in the global agriculture. At the same time, Belaruskali’s major markets are Brazil, India and China, whereas the EU accounts for about 6-7% of the total exports in physical terms or about 8% in monetary terms. However, even such small figures in the past prevented the EU from completely abandoning Belarusian fertilizers, and so, when it imposed restrictions in June 2021, Brussels removed products with a potassium content of 58% or more. In this regard, neither then, nor now, did the European sanctions frighten official Minsk, for which more serious problems were created by the US restrictions, which since 2022 have made it impossible to work with Baltic ports, where virtually all of Belaruskali’s products are transshipped. Against this background, Minsk concentrated on diversifying export routes, primarily through Russia, rather than looking to replace the European market.
Today it is assumed that all of Belarus’ potash products will no longer be able to be sold in the EU and that BPC will have difficulty operating in the global market because of the threat of secondary restrictions for buyers and insurers. However, in the current situation, the harm from the sixth sanctions package will be bigger not for Belarus and not for Russia, but for the initiators themselves. In this case, we are talking about an imminent food problem in the world that may develop into a famine of planetary scale, which will directly and indirectly affect the West as well. Many analysts even now warn that food shortages in poor countries may lead to a new movement of people and ensuing chaos in Europe. At the same time, problems may well bypass the U.S., and Washington will be happy to watch Europe flounder. It may be recalled that the United States has decided to remove Russian potash from sanctions and continues to increase oil purchases from Russia while forbidding the Europeans to do so.
The involvement of Western multinational corporations in the fight against Russia and Belarus is also adding fuel to the fire, as they seek to redistribute global markets, including mineral fertilizers, which have seen a sharp rise in prices in recent months. For example, the price of chloralkali in 2021 rose by 1.5 times and by April 2022, the cost of urea, ammonium nitrate, phosphate and potassium increased by another 20-50%. Brazil and Europe have seen the strongest increases. As a result, the cost of foodstuffs is constantly rising, which may become uncontrollable by the autumn and winter of this year. Against this background, any additional sanctions, which concern food and mineral fertilisers supplies, look like a real crime that is covered up by accusations against Russia and statements about the West’s humanism.
A new wave of Western sanctions has once again demonstrated to Minsk and Moscow that the EU and the US have no intention of sitting down at the negotiating table and continue their policy of lies and hypocrisy. This is happening against the background of words about the need to save the world from hunger by joint efforts, but without taking into account the interests of Belarus and Russia. At the same time, today it is obvious that such tactics of the EU and the USA will soon lead to unexpected results, completely changing the present look of the world community, destabilization of which is only fueled by the present sanctions and Russophobia.
Anton Poljanic, One Nation
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