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July 30 – August 5, 2012

Attack on the reputation of President Lukashenko

The situation has not changed
Attack on the reputation of President Lukashenko

Russo-Belarusian relations remain turbulent. Both parties are interested in mutual concessions and use different tools to put pressure on each other.

On July 25th Russian Olympic Committee Head Alexander Zhukov outraged in his Tweeter the denial of accreditation for the XXX Olympic Games in London for President Lukashenko. Later this information was confirmed by the British Embassy in Minsk.

The obvious implication of the ‘outrage’ by the Russian Olympic Committee Chairman was to draw attention to the EU visa sanctions against Belarusian leadership. Rapid reaction from the British Foreign Office and silence of the Belarusian government implies that it could be a planned action in order to exert pressure on Minsk.

In turn, the Belarusian authorities were not interested in attracting additional attention to the status of President Lukashenko as persona non-grata. Earlier, the Belarusian President attempted to accredit for the Olympic Games however was denied via informal channels. Therefore, on July 12th, during the opening of the ‘Slavic Bazar’ music festival in Vitebsk Lukashenko regretfully called the Olympic Games a politicized event.

Therefore, it is likely that the Twitter intercession by Mr. Zhukov meant to put additional pressure on the Belarusian authorities, which hold complicated negotiations with Russia on a number of issues, the main and the most controversial of which is the privatization of Belarusian enterprises.

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