Belarus on the brink

Watching events in Belarus lately is like watching a train slowly falling off the rails. Foreign currency has dried up, its currency has spiraled downward, the shelves are emptying. If President Alexander Lukashenko hadn’t proven his dictatorial credentials by bloodily cracking down on protestors in December and subsequently jailing opposition activists, the IMF might well have listened to his appeals for help and set the train back on track. But he did and so they didn’t and it was left to Russia to step in, which it did, by means of a $3 billion loan.

Someone forgot to tell Belarus that it’s never a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you, particularly when that hand is Russian. Seeking to forever find external enemies to displace the blame for Belarus’ woes (remember that random bomb attack on the metro?), Lukashenko has spent the past couple of weeks lashing out at Russia – threatening to kick out Russian media, accusing Moscow of fomenting dissent via social networks.

So it should come as no surprise that Russia’s electricity monopoly announced today that at midnight tonight it would cut all electricity supplies to Belarus, unless the country repays its 1.2 billion ruble ($43 million) debt for April and May.

“As of 8:30 a.m. Moscow time (04:30 GMT) no payment for electricity was made…from June 29, at 00:00 Moscow time (June 28, 20:00 GMT) we will completely cut electricity supplies to Belarus. We are waiting for Belarus to fully repay its debt and make the next payment," a spokesman for RAO UES said, RIA-Novosti reported.

Russia’s made these threats before but at some point it will have to decide whether it can indefinitely prop up a regime that is making a growing career out of pissing everybody off. The problem is, what would replace it?