Russia cuts electricity supply to Belarus in dispute over unpaid bills

RUSSIA HAS cut all its electricity supplies to neighbouring Belarus in a dispute over unpaid bills, adding to authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko’s woes as he grapples with the worst crisis of his 17-year rule.

Russia provides about 10 per cent of Belarus’s electricity and so the cut-off should not cripple the country, but it increases pressure on Mr Lukashenko to bow to Moscow’s demands that he sell key industrial assets – preferably to Russian businessmen – to raise money for his ailing economy.

The International Monetary Fund and European Union states are also urging Mr Lukashenko to liberalise his state-dominated economy, which has been rocked by spiralling inflation, a 36 per cent devaluation of the rouble currency and bouts of panic-buying from a fearful public.

Street protests are also becoming increasingly common in Belarus, a country of 9.6 million people where Mr Lukashenko has long held political opponents and critical media in an iron grip.

Russian power exporter InterRAO said it had halted supplies over 1.2 billion roubles (€30 million) that Belarus owed for electricity supplied in March, April and May.

“Supplies to Belarus were cut to zero,” said InterRAO spokesman Anton Nazarov.

“We are awaiting the next tranche (of payment) after which we will be able to fully restore supplies.” Analysts say Belarus needs some €6 billion to provide for its immediate needs, but it has not yet received an answer to requests for aid from the IMF and Russia and other ex-Soviet states.

Experts place much of the blame for the country’s difficulties on Mr Lukashenko’s spending spree before last December’s presidential election, which opponents say he rigged.

Protests that followed the vote were brutally put down by riot police who arrested hundreds of demonstrators and several rival candidates were jailed.

The regime’s economic difficulties have undermined Mr Lukashenko’s popularity among older Belarusians, many of whom saw him as a guarantor of stability, and emboldened an opposition movement that is using online social networks to co-ordinate protest rallies.

The latest such event was planned for last night in Minsk, and organisers hoped for a large turnout despite the riot police’s heavy-handed response to a peaceful demonstration last Wednesday, which saw some 200 people arrested.

Mr Lukashenko has vowed to crack down on opposition protests and says they are being encouraged by foreign governments hostile to his rule.