Minsk counts on financial support from United States

Last week, Belarus’ Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich visited New York, where he held talks with U.S. politicians and businessmen.

Amid growing tensions between the Kremlin and the West, the political crisis in Ukraine and the de-politicisation of Belarusian-European cooperation, Minsk hopes that the USA will lift the economic sanctions, thus enabling the authorities to balance out their increased financial dependence on Russia with Western investments and loans from international financial organisations, the IMF in particular. The Belarusian government is also counting on American business’ interest in promoting their products on the Russian market. It is ready to make some concessions to Washington, for example, to enable expansion of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Belarus. However, official Minsk would not yield to the pressure to change its domestic policies or improve relations with the opposition.