MOSCOW: The Belarus foreign minister said on Wednesday his country would impose travel bans on senior officials in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in retaliation for measures targetting its own officials.
Meanwhile, Russia stepped up support for the Belarusian government. Over three weeks after a political crisis erupted in Belarus over allegations of vote rigging in a presidential election which incumbent Alexander Lukashenko said he had won, Minsk and close ally Moscow are pushing back hard against Lukashenko’s domestic and foreign critics.
In Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said his country had agreed to impose retaliatory sanctions on a list of individuals in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Payback
The move was payback, he said, after the three Baltic countries on Monday said they were imposing travel bans on Lukashenko and 29 other Belarusian officials to punish them for their role in the alleged vote-rigging and in a crackdown against protesters.
Makei declined to say who was on the sanctions list, but said it targetted individuals who had tried to interfere in his country’s internal affairs, made what he called unacceptable political statements, and spoken of funding the opposition.
“For us this is absolutely unacceptable,” he said, warning Minsk would impose sanctions on any other countries who put sanctions on Belarus.
The EU has been working on a list of individuals to target with sanctions but is expected to exclude Lukashenko.
Russian support
Standing alongside Makei, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov offered Lukashenko strong support and said Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin would visit Belarus for talks on Thursday.
Moscow would respond “firmly and with dignity” to any attempts to destabilise Belarus or loosen its strong ties to Russia, he said.