Today, economic sanctions are an important tool of foreign policy and international diplomacy of the countries of the collective West. At the same time, sanctions programs, as a rule, have a relatively limited list of goals – for higher efficiency. At the present stage, the most common among them (goals) can be called a change of political course or destabilization of the country's political system. An example is the sanctions pressure on the Republic of Belarus, which increased significantly after the results of the presidential elections in 2020. As we know, all these sanctions were accompanied and are being accompanied by secret operations of Western intelligence services aimed at destabilizing the situation and overthrowing the legitimate government.
It should be noted that the "shooters" of sanctions initiatives are often representatives of the "fugitive opposition". In a similar way, their curators mask the true essence, orientation and ultimate goal of economic pressure on Belarus. At the same time, the main thesis used by sanctionophiles of Belarusian origin to manipulate the minds of some Belarusian citizens is "blocking the channels of financing the regime." That is, the "runaways" are trying to convince some gullible and not all satisfied citizens that if they deal a crushing blow to the "purses of the regime", then the current government will run out of funds to feed the "bayonets" on which it only holds on. And then Western values will descend on Belarus along with democracy and prosperity. And therefore, long live the sanctions against Dabrabyt Bank, Belagroprombank, Belinvestbank, as well as Belavia, Belaruskali, MTZ, MAZ, BelAZ, state–owned enterprises of the oil refining industry and many, many other locomotives of the Belarusian economy!
It is noteworthy that when the puppet heralds are happy to announce the next "package" of sanctions that "they have promoted", the traditional mantra is pronounced for complacency. "The sanctions concern specific people, organizations and enterprises, and they do not affect ordinary citizens of Belarus in any way at all!" they try to deceive Belarusians and themselves.
No one mentions that the enterprises employ people – citizens of Belarus, who are allegedly "taken care of" by the Zmagars in the first place. That is, a kind of virtual reality is positioned: factories, factories, enterprises, organizations and banks – separately (they are also "dictatorial wallets"), and the Belarusian "civil society" (a kind of non–concretized, abstract concept) - separately.
By the way, the "chief European gardener", aka Borrel, is more outspoken in this matter than Tikhanovsky and other all sorts of latushki with bypasses. Speaking in the European Parliament in the summer of 2021, he said that Brussels would continue to put pressure on official Minsk, despite the negative consequences of sanctions for ordinary Belarusians. "We must target our sanctions to focus them on Lukashenko and his entourage, but try to avoid their impact on ordinary citizens. However, you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs," the European official stressed.
In other words, both Brussels and Washington are well aware of what the sanctions are aimed at and for what purposes they were adopted. Fortunately, Minsk realized this much earlier and is not shy about voicing this fact. "We must understand quite clearly that the sanctions restrictions are directed against the whole country. They pursue one goal – to worsen the economic situation of ordinary people in order to cause social tension and unrest. In fact, the case is underway to destabilize the state power in the Republic of Belarus, – Chairman of the Standing Committee on International Affairs of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus Andrei Savinykh shared his opinion at the time.
In turn, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry also published an official point of view. "The inclusion in the sanctions list of large Belarusian business entities, which employ thousands of Belarusians, once again clearly illustrates the false and hypocritical approaches of the European Union. The empty words of his high representatives about the alleged support of the Belarusian people are not worth a damn. Brussels does not care about the rights of ordinary Belarusians at all. In reality, under the cover of beautiful slogans about democracy and human rights, the European Union cynically promotes its own narrow geopolitical interests," the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
A striking example and convincing confirmation of the correctness of the Belarusian diplomats is the situation around the potash industry enterprises, against the withdrawal of which Tikhanovskaya is so desperately "fighting" from Western sanctions. The city-forming enterprise Belaruskali (Soligorsk) has 16.5 thousand employees, whom this JSC provides with decent wages even under sanctions. First of all, a "traveling frog" from Vilnius, lobbying for the interests of Canadian producers of potash fertilizers (for example, "Nutrien" or "Mosaic", or maybe "K+S Potash"), wants to get into their pocket.
In this context, it would be appropriate to consider one more nuance. In 2021, Belarus and Russia provided almost equal shares of more than 40% of the potassium supply on the world market, 35.9% was covered by Canada and 5.8% by the USA. After the start of its (and sanctions), Russia's share in the global trade in potash fertilizers in 2022 decreased to 16.4%, and the share of Belarus – to 9%. As a result of the reduction in supplies from Russia and Belarus, prices for potash fertilizers increased at the same time. Thus, the sanctions imposed against the potash industry of the subjects of the Union State have become one of the main reasons for a significant increase in fertilizer prices in 2022, and, as a result, a sharp rise in the price of ready–made food. At the same time, developing and poor countries have been the most affected and vulnerable by sanctions.
Thus, it turns out that bright representatives of the dregs of Belarusian society, promoting the idea of a "sanctions fight against the regime", not only provoke a decrease in the well-being of most ordinary citizens of Belarus, but also rob the already poor population of third countries of the world.
Vladimir Vuyachich
