Aleś Alachnovič, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Advisor on Economic Reforms and the Vice-President of Association of Belarusian Businesses Abroad (ABBA), shared insights on Belarus’ increasing dependence on Russia in a Euroradio interview. He also outlined the approach to repaying the loans taken by the current regime in future New Belarus.
“Our dependence on Russia is critical. Essentially, Russia has all the leverage to blackmail Belarus and Lukashenka today. In the future, after a democratic transition in Belarus, we will have a short window of opportunity to swiftly expand cooperation with other countries and minimize this dependence”, commended Aleś Alachnovič.
He also explained why events like the Strategic Dialogue, meetings with the IMF and World Bank are valuable for Belarus’ future and its economy:
“We need these initiatives to understand how quickly we have to organize a creditors’ conference to refinance Belarus. Currently, Russia is Lukashenkа’s main creditor. In New Belarus, we could organize a creditors’ conference to seek assistance from other Western countries to help us repay Russian loans, but only those we are obligated to pay. Those taken by Lukashenka in recent years are illegitimate. Not all of them, though, and we will have to repay a portion of them”.
