Russia: discussing compensation to Belarus is not right

It is not right to discuss compensation to Belarus, the Russian MFA reckons. Belarus is suffering economic losses due to Russia’s oil tax maneuver. The Belarusian government has been trying to get compensation from Russia without success. The Belarusian budget is going to lose up to $10.6 billion by 2025 - big amount for Belarus.

‘The tax maneuver’ is “Russia’s sovereign right so it is not right to discuss any ‘compensation’”, Russian deputy Foreign Minister Yegor Karasin told ria.ru. It is only possible to talk about ‘some facilitation of the consequences for Belarus’, he noted. This issue is being worked on and the decision will be ‘complex’, Karasin said. All attempts to assess the situation are untimely, he thinks.

A compensation for the tax maneuver may only be given to Belarus after ‘the joint approach to integration is defined’, Russian senior vice PM and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov said earlier. Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin have recently met in Saint Petersburg and agreed to decide all points in Belarus-Russia relations by the end of 2019.