Lukashenko is bluffing – the trick with Pompeo will not work
Flirting with the United States will not help Belarus - Washington will not take upon itself the economic maintenance of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. The only purpose of inviting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Minsk is to cause nervousness in Moscow as disputes over the price of oil continue. However, the Russian leadership is well aware that Lukashenko is bluffing.
Political commentator Yuri Baranchik stated this in a commentary to PolitNavigator, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“There are no results from Pompeo’s visit. What is being spread by telegram channels, on the contrary, puts the sovereignty of Belarus at risk, because any form of unification with Poland is an unacceptable political construction.
As for oil, oil in the United States has completely different technical parameters than those needed for Belarusian refineries. Even in the United States itself, American oil is specially diluted with Venezuelan oil so that it meets the technical requirements of American refineries. There will be a similar situation in Belarus.
Plus, you need to understand that even a Norwegian tanker that came to Belarus - first to the Baltic states, and then by rail to Belarus, it cost ten million dollars more than the same oil delivered from Russia. But the transport distance from Norway to Belarus is small; in the USA it will be much larger. Accordingly, the cost of oil will be much higher.
Therefore, here, if the official Minsk is ready to overpay for American oil by 20 percent more than it buys in Russia, there is no doubt that the republic will sooner or later face an economic crisis, because all this will happen either at the expense of citizens’ incomes or due to the loss of gold and foreign exchange reserves.
Therefore, the United States is trying to play this game in order to make Russia nervous. However, it did not cause any nervousness, so he did not achieve his goal,” Baranchyk said.
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