COVID-19 and Trump’s indifference helped human rights abusers in 2020
Belarusian government sees $2bn of withdrawals, issues $580mn worth of bonds in 2020
Lukashenko: I am no enemy of the people
Storming parliaments: New Europe's greatest hits
One of Russia’s biggest wood product companies, Segezha could be Sistema’s next IPO
The volume of the Russian National Wealth Fund tops $183.93bn as gold overtakes dollar asset for first time
EU to begin certifying Russian Sputnik V vaccine for use in Europe
New Ukrainian VC firm QPDigital aims to invest up to $100 million in digital startups
EBRD investments reach record €11bn in pandemic-struck 2020
FPRI BMB Ukraine: Most Ukrainians are optimistic about 2021 – poll
OUTLOOK 2021 Lithuania
EBRD says loan to Estonia’s controversial Porto Franco project was never disbursed
Estonian premier quits after Tallinn development scandal
Top Centre Party official suspected of corruption in Tallinn real estate scandal
Czech Pirates and Mayors approve final coalition agreement for 2021 elections
OUTLOOK 2021 Czechia
BRICKS & MORTAR: Rosier future beckons for CEE retailers after year of change and disruption
Romanian tech entrepreneurs expand into banking sector
OUTLOOK 2021 Hungary
Hungarian government remains silent after Capitol riots
World Bank expects modest recovery for Europe and Central Asia in 2021
FDI inflows to CEE down 58% in 1H20 but rebound expected
OUTLOOK 2021 Slovakia
Slovakia to invest €1.2bn in digitisation
BALKAN BLOG: The controversial recipe for building up Albania
Heavy flooding causes chaos in parts of Southeast Europe
Vodafone Albania plans €100mn infrastructure investments after AbCom merger
OUTLOOK 2021 Albania
Kyiv accuses Bosnian President Dodik of lying about icon gifted to Russian foreign minister
Bosnia’s real GDP contracts 6.3% y/y in 3Q20
Sofia-based LAUNCHub Ventures holds first close of new fund on €44mn
ING THINK: Growth in the Balkans: from zero to hero again?
OUTLOOK 2020 Bulgaria
Labour demand down 28% y/y in Croatia in 2020
Zagreb Stock Exchange's Crobex10 index at highest level since March 5
OUTLOOK 2021 Kosovo
Arrera Automobili aims to launch Albania’s first supercar
World Bank revises projection for Moldova’s 2020 GDP decline to 7.2%
Moldova’s PM resigns to prepare the ground for early elections
Socialist lawmakers in Moldova scrap settlement on $1bn bank frauds
Montenegro’s new ruling coalition carves up top state jobs
OUTLOOK 2021 Montenegro
Vast tide of floating waste threatens Balkan hydropower plants
North Macedonia's manufacturing confidence indicator down by 8.5 pp y/y in December
OUTLOOK 2021 North Macedonia
Transparency International warns of high corruption risk in CEE defence sectors
Moldova fears flooding from Ukraine's planned Dniester hydropower plants
Romania’s industrial recovery paused in November
OUTLOOK 2021 Serbia
Slovenia’s opposition files no-confidence motion against Jansa cabinet
UK Moneyhub picks Slovenia for post-Brexit European base
Slovenia’s dire COVID-19 situation in 4Q20 caused second economic dip
Slovenia’s Eligma completes €4mn funding round
BEYOND THE BOSPORUS: Let’s tentatively pencil in a date for Turkey’s hot money outflow
Turkish opposition leader lawsuit demands one lira from Erdogan, police probe “bald” interior minister posts
OUTLOOK 2021 Armenia
Armenia’s PM cautions conflict with Azerbaijan “still not settled” after trilateral meeting with Putin
COMMENT: Record high debt levels will slow post-coronavirus recovery, threaten some countries' financial stability, says IIF
Russia, Kazakhstan pushing for oil production increases on the back of coronavirus vaccine-fuelled oil price optimism
OUTLOOK 2021 Georgia
Georgia’s political kingpin Bidzina Ivanishvili quits politics
Modern-day “Robin Hood” inspires Georgians drowning in debt
Iran’s navy conducts missile drill while analyst argues Trump even capable of nuclear strike in final days
TEHRAN BLOG: Who’s more credible? Johnson backing Trump’s Nobel chances or Iran applauding arrest warrant for US president?
STOLYPIN: Scope for limited progress under Biden, so long as the past remains the past
Central Asia vaccination plans underwhelm, but governments look unruffled
Fears of authoritarianism as Kyrgyz populist wins landslide and backing for ‘Khanstitution’
OUTLOOK 2021 Kyrgyzstan
Mongolia's winter dzud set to be one of most extreme on record says Red Cross
Mongolian coal exports to China paralysed as Beijing demands virus testing of truck drivers
Mongolia fears economic damage as country faces up to its first local transmissions of coronavirus
Mongolia in lockdown after suffering first local coronavirus transmissions
OUTLOOK 2021 Tajikistan
China business briefing: Not happy with Kyrgyzstan
OUTLOOK 2021 Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan: How the Grinch stole New Year
Turkmenistan: The dammed united
COMMENT: Uzbekistan is being transformed, but where are the democratic reforms?
OUTLOOK 2021 Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan’s Makro positions itself for growth in a more competitive market
Download the pdf version
More...
Belarus' self-appointed President Alexander Lukashenko closed the borders to the countries west of Belarus and shook up his security team on October 29, as he grapples to find a way out of the deadlock in his confrontation with the population.
Border crossings to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine were all closed to anyone other than Belarusian citizens and diplomats, with the authorities citing the escalation of the coronavirus (COVID-19) infections as the cause. The border with Russia remains open.
Lukashenko also sacked his interior minister and named three security hawks to new prominent roles as the strongman president attempts to tighten his control over the system that has failed to quell a popular protest demanding his resignation.
Lukashenko had already shaken up the government before the presidential elections on August 9 that were massively falsified to give the incumbent a landslide win. Lukashenko reshuffled the government again shortly after the protests broke out following the election. On both occasions Lukashenko promoted people with security service backgrounds to top jobs.
This is not the first time that Lukashenko has threatened to close the borders in his disputes with his neighbours, which have all come out in support of the opposition led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is now in exile in Lithuania. He even announced on September that the border with the Baltic states had been shut, only for it to transpire that the actual order was never issued by the government.
This time he seems to have followed through and the neighbouring states report that traffic over the border has been halted. Cars going into Belarus were barred from entry from 14:00 GMT, and in few hours the border was closed for outgoing cars, Rustamas Liubajevas, chief of the Lithuanian border guard, told Reuters. The change came without an advance warning, he added.
On the same day, Interior Minister Yuri Karayev was sacked and replaced by Ivan Kubrakov, who was head of police and led the crackdown on the biggest demonstrations in Minsk in the first days following the disputed election.
Karayev was one of three men named as presidential aides and inspectors responsible for key regions of Belarus, as Lukashenko attempts to shore up his control of the country and respond to the mass protest that take control of the streets of all the major towns and cities each weekend.
The two other two new presidential aides are Valery Vakulchik, who spent eight years as head of the KGB security police, and former deputy interior minister Alexander Barsukov.
Barsukov will be responsible for Minsk, Vakulchik for Brest on the Polish border and Karayev for Grodno, near the borders with Poland and Lithuania, reports Reuters.
Lukashenko has also ordered the strengthening of armed volunteer militia, which have terrorised the largely peaceful protests with random acts of violence.
The president appears to be preparing for a counter-offensive after Tikhanovskaya’s call for a general strike to start on October 26 seems to have flopped, undermining her authority and puncturing the momentum of the protest movement.
While workers have downed tools in many factories, the strike has failed to reach critical mass and most of the biggest state-owned factories appear to be still working, albeit at reduced levels of productivity.
Commenting on Lukashenko’s decision to close the borders and shake up his security team, Tikhanovskaya said: “The regime destroys itself. Both the closure of the borders and the next appointments are signals of a weakening of his power. He makes inconsistent decisions because he is in a panic,” she said in a statement as cited by Reuters.
Security forces have arrested more than 16,000 people since the presidential election according to local NGOs, with more than 1,000 being arrested at the weekend.
Political theatre
There is almost certainly a large element of political theatre motivating Lukashenko’s actions that plays to his constant refrain that Belarus is facing an existential threat from the Nato member countries on his western border.
Last month Lukashenko put the military on full alert in the western part of the country as he attempted to fan the flames of fears that Belarus was about to be invaded by its neighbours and that Nato and the US were funding the insurrection.
Taking a leaf out of the Kremlin’s play book following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Lukashenko is hoping an “enemy at the gate” threat will rally support in his favour.
Closing the borders and dispatching three of his top lieutenants to the western border regions to beef up security there all play to this theme. However, the move also smacks of frustration, as there is no actual threat from the West and by removing three of his top men from the real centre of the conflict – Minsk – he will probably weaken his hand.
Lukashenko’s position remains tenuous, as his only real hold on power is his control of the security services and the violence they can inflict on the protesters. Weakening his control over that apparatus is a dangerous game to play.
Russia also appears to be supporting Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement on August 27 that he was willing to send a special military unit to quell the protests “if necessary” prevented Lukashenko being ousted in the first weeks of the protest. But since then Russia has done as little as it can to help Lukashenko. The two loan restructuring deals worth $1.5bn transpired to be little more than accounting tricks that simply moved Belarusian debt to large Russian corporate entities off their books and on to the sovereign balance sheet, while no desperately needed fresh cash was made available. The only cash loan that the Kremlin has made to Lukashenko of $500mn is a third of the $1.4bn of cash the population has withdrawn from the banking system in the last two months. There are already anecdotal reports that the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and already having trouble paying wages.
Addressing the three new aides, Lukashenko said they were heading to “very important” areas of the country “in connection with the events that have occurred and are not yet over – we still don’t know what this may result in,” in remarks cited by Reuters. “Why you? You are military people. You’re knowledgeable. You don’t need to be brought up to speed and taught.”
Karayev, Barsukov, Vakulchik and Kubrakov were all included on the EU sanction list issued in October and face EU travel bans and asset freezes. The US has also imposed sanctions on Karayev, Barsukov and Kubrakov.
Register here to continue reading this article and 5 more for free or purchase 12 months full website access including the bne Magazine for just $250/year.
Register to read the bne monthly magazine for free:
Already registered
Password could contain only a-z0-9\+*?[^]$(){}=!<>|:-_ characters and have 8-20 symbols length.
Please complete your registration by confirming your email address.
A confirmation email has been sent to the email address you provided.
Forgotten password?
Email field can't be empty.
No user with this email address.
Access recovery request has expired, or you are using the wrong recovery token. Please, try again.
Access recover request has expired. Please, try again.
To continue viewing our content you need to complete the registration process.
Please look for an email that was sent to with the subject line "Confirmation bne IntelliNews access". This email will have instructions on how to complete registration process. Please check in your "Junk" folder in case this communication was misdirected in your email system.
If you have any questions please contact us at sales@intellinews.com
Sorry, but you have used all your free articles fro this month for bne IntelliNews. Subscribe to continue reading for only $119 per year.
Your subscription includes:
For the meantime we are also offering a free subscription to bne's digital weekly newspaper to subscribers to the online package.
Click here for more subscription options, including to the print version of our flagship monthly magazine:
More subscription options
Take a trial to our premium daily news service aimed at professional investors that covers the 30 countries of emerging Europe:
Get IntelliNews PRO
For any other enquiries about our products or corporate discounts please contact us at sales@intellinews.com
If you no longer wish to receive our emails, unsubscribe here.
Magazine annual electronic subscription
Magazine annual print subscription
Website & Archive annual subscription
Combined package: web access & magazine print annual subscription