Word: russia
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...Following last year's war in Georgia, Belarus felt pressure from Russia to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia but knew that doing so, when no country in the West recognizes either as independent, would push Belarus into international isolation. Instead, Lukashenko satisfied U.S. demands to release a large group of political prisoners, including former presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin. Last month, Russia canceled its last $500 million installment of a $2 billion IMF loan to Belarus as punishment for not recognizing the breakaway republics, Lukashenko claimed. "It's no coincidence that Lukashenko released key political prisoners within days of the August...
...Lukashenko has been able to manipulate the tensions between Russia and the West in his favor. Belarus is the only country that has successfully asked for and received loans from both Russia and the IMF, and Russia is still Belarus' major trading partner. But Lukashenko may not be able to keep up this balancing act for long. "If he wants to survive with Russia angry at his border, then Lukashenko needs to do some more thorough [political reforms] then he is willing to admit," says Vitali Silitski, director of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, pointing out that Belarus...
...Lukashenko's refusal to attend a key security summit in Moscow on Monday because of the dairy ban has infuriated the Kremlin, and despite Belarus' achievements with the E.U., the price for angering Russian President Dmitri Medvedev may just be too high. "Exporting food to Russia has been one of [Belarus'] most important and reliable trade sectors," Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, tells TIME. "The ban will definitely sting." In 2008, Russia bought 93% of Belarus' meat and dairy products, earning Belarus $1 billion...
...Russia has insisted that the ban is not political and simply reflects a failure on Belarus' part to meet new sanitary regulations. But Russia has a tradition of banning goods from neighboring countries at the first sign of disagreement, like the 2005 ban (which has since been lifted) of Polish meat after Poland joined the E.U. and the 2006 ban of Georgian wine after Tblisi accused Moscow of spying, leading some observers to suggest that Belarus isn't being paranoid. "That's the Russia way," says Wilson. "It has had a lot of economic rows with neighbors, and it uses...
...economic relationship between Russia and Belarus has been steadily worsening since 2007, when Russia raised gas prices and demanded that Belarus give up control of gas transit from Russia to Europe - about 20% of Russian gas exports to Europe go through Belarus, and so Russia wants to take over Beltransgaz, the state-run operator of Belarus' gas-pipeline network. (Read "Russia's Gazprom Diplomacy: Turning Off Europe's Heat...