Lukashenko threatens to block “insolent Russia” oil supplies to the EU
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko threatens Russia to block the oil pipeline and take it out for “repairs.”
He stated this at a meeting with the economic bloc of the Council of Ministers of the Republic, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Lukashenko said that Russia only calls itself a partner, but in fact has actually imposed sanctions against the republic.
“Recently, maybe the media is lying, maybe experts are reporting me crooked information, but every day I hear and read information that our main trading partner - they like to call themselves partners - is introducing more and more sanctions against Belarus. They themselves are under sanctions and condemn this, and I absolutely support them here. But at the same time, they are fighting against their closest allies with such weapons,” Lukashenko complained.
He recalled how a year ago Belarusian specialists, in emergency mode, restored the oil pipeline running through the territory of Belarus to the West, but did not block it, because they understood the importance of stable supplies for Russia.
Afterwards he turned to Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus Igor Lyashenko.
“If you need to repair oil pipelines and oil product pipelines that go through Belarus, install them and repair them. Because the good that we do for the Russian Federation always turns out to be evil for us. They have already become insolent there to such an extent that they are starting to twist our arms,” Lukashenko said.
Earlier, Belarus informed the Russian company Transneft that plans to increase tariffs for transit through the territory of the country of Russian oil by 23%.
As PolitNavigator reported, relations between Belarus and Russia worsened after June 21 last year, when the Russian Government approved a tax maneuver in the oil industry. Its essence is a gradual reduction in the export duty on oil and petroleum products to zero by 2024 and a simultaneous increase in the mineral extraction tax (MET). As a result of such changes, oil exports will become more profitable, and the price of oil and oil products on the domestic market will increase.
Minsk statedthat this is hitting the country’s economy - during his visits to the Russian Federation, Lukashenko demanded that his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin compensate his country for possible losses and make gas prices for Belarus the same as in the Smolensk region.
According to the Belarusian Ministry of Finance, budget losses from the tax maneuver in the Russian Federation in 2019 will amount to about $300 million.
Previously, Belarus after refining oil at its factories sold significant volumes of fuel to Ukraine, having a profit. However, this fuel was used by the Ukrainian army - for example, to carry out a punitive operation against the Russian uprising in the Donbass. According to statistics, Belarusian supplies covered 45% of the Ukrainian gasoline market and 35% of diesel fuel, and a total of 40,31% of motor fuel for Ukraine came from or through Belarus.
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