NATO countries blacklist Lukashenko and those closest to him – VG

Thirty years ago, these four countries were part of the same nation: the Soviet Union.

– We must take concrete measures, says Lithuanian Chancellor Linas Linkevicius to the AFP news agency, reproduced by france24.com. She said the same thing when VG met her a week ago.

Now Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have taken concrete action against the President of Belarus.

The sanctions list also includes representatives of the Belarusian KGB intelligence service and chiefs of police within the Interior Ministry, all of whom have been instrumental in suppressing the demonstrations.

People from the official electoral commission are also blacklisted. They were the ones who announced that Lukashenko won the presidential election with 80 percent of the vote. Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya claims she received the most votes. Since the elections, she has been in exile in Lithuania, for the safety of her children. The man, who was originally supposed to be a presidential candidate, is still incarcerated in Minsk.

Various media outlets report that Tikhanovskaya will speak to the UN Security Council on Friday, at the initiative of Estonia.

The EU has also worked on a list of people in Belarus who may be subject to sanctions, but, unlike the three Baltic countries, the threats have not been taken seriously.

When threats emerged from Lithuania and the other two countries before the weekend, a furious Lukashenko exclaimed:

– We will show you what sanctions are, said the President of Belarus according to fontanka.ru and rbc.ru.

– Lithuania receives 30 percent of its budget income from Belarusian products shipped through its territory. Now I have asked the government to reorganize our transport so that it bypasses the Lithuanian ports.

A spokesman for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Monday night that the country will retaliate against the sanctions, Vedomosti reports.

– This will be a spiral of sanctions, said the spokesman Anatoly Glaz.

Alexander Lukashenko has made no concessions to the opposition and this weekend expelled foreign journalists and photographers from Belarus. But he acknowledged on Monday that the country has a “somewhat authoritarian form of government.” Therefore, he spoke of a referendum on constitutional reforms. This was especially true in the judicial system. At the same time, he rejected the opposition’s demand to return to the 1994 constitution, which was later modified to give the president more power.

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“We must make sure that we have a system that is not tied to individuals, including Lukashenko,” the president said of himself in the third person, quoted by the national news agency BelTA.

In recent weeks, Alexander Lukashenko has appeared increasingly concerned about the protests, even as he emerged from a helicopter with an automatic weapon in hand.

At least 7,000 people have been arrested in Belarus during the demonstrations, according to official figures. Lukashenko is aware that the country’s courts are apolitical.

– I am ready to discuss with everyone whether Belarus has the most independent courts, said the president on Monday when he met with the president of the country’s Supreme Court.

He insisted that those demanding changes in the former Soviet republic are a minority. Tikhanovskaya says they are in the majority.

Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, when he was democratically elected. Previously he was head of a large collective farm. Independent foreign observers were unable to monitor the presidential elections on August 9.