Belarus has become a key supplier of tobacco to the UK, using mechanisms to circumvent sanctions. According to the British government, from July 2022 to June 2023, more than $202 million worth of tobacco products and beverages were imported from Belarus. This is 96% of all supplies from the totalitarian country to the UK. This was reported by The Ukrainian Review.
It is worth noting that the owners of Tabak-Invest, Pavel Topuzidis and Viktor Petrovich, one of the richest people in Belarus and supporters of the Lukashenko regime, are behind these illegal supplies. They have been under US sanctions since December 5, 2023.
Franak Viacorka, chief advisor to the duly elected President of Belarus, Svitlana Tsikhanouskaya, notes that these supplies not only support the Belarusian economy, but also create conditions for supporting the regime.
There are a lot of schemes. Lukashenko’s mafia is very flexible: when one loophole is closed, they instantly come up with new ones: they create shell companies, register them with foreigners, and so on. All this is controlled by Lukashenko personally and those close to him. The EU and other countries are not able to react so quickly, to close these loopholes, – added Franak Viacorka.
At the same time, another expert, Denys Kuzmin an expert at the Center for International Studies at I.I. Mechnikov Odesa National University, notes that not everything is so simple in modern international relations, which combine idealistic views (i.e., countries rely on certain values), but also a pragmatic approach.
For us, it is the aggressor country and their henchmen, and no one in the West is going to destroy their economic potential for our sake. They have already lost too much when most of the European business left Russia and Belarus, – said Denys Kuzmin.
Experts emphasize that the EU needs to introduce effective mechanisms to control the implementation of sanctions, as well as create resources for border control and effective monitoring of the implementation of restrictions.
It is worth noting that on December 6, EU ambassadors failed to agree on the 15th package of sanctions against Russia. Reuters reported, citing diplomatic sources, that two countries blocked the adoption of the package. Their names were not specified. According to the report, the main reason was a disagreement over the timeframe for European companies to complete the withdrawal of investments from Russia.
