Belarus–Russia relations

Russia, through the Eurasian Economic Community, has agreed to grant Belarus a USD 3bn loan, of which Belarus will only see USD 800m this month. The Belarusian government will only get the remaining amount, in two portions over...

3 July 2010

Russia Is Not Willing to Pay for its Imperial Prestige

This week, after a bitter gas transit conflict with Belarusian government, Russian Gasprom declared that preliminary gas prices for Belarus next year should be about USD 250. Now it pays 185 dollars. Even some naïve oppositional analysts welcomed what...

5 June 2010

Customs Union of Former Soviet Nations Fails Due to Total Absence of Mutual Trust

The post-Soviet integration and cooperation initiatives have an extremely unsuccessful track record. It seems that the problems persist. Recently, the very idea of Customs Union between Belarus, Russian Federation and Kazakhstan had been questioned, after the government of Belarus...

31 May 2010

How Low Can Minsk Go for Cheaper Energy?

To lower the price of Russian energy Belarus has tried pleas, threats, promises, and blackmail. Minsk set lowering the cost of imported energy as a condition to joining the Customs Union with Russia...

3 July 2009

New York Times: Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying