
The Belarusian authorities will receive a new loan from Russia in the amount of up to $ 600 million, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters.
The corresponding decision was made earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Minsk will use these funds to refinance payments to pay off the basic debt that Minsk has accumulated in front of Moscow due to previously allocated loans.
Siluanov stressed that the government of Belarus has fulfilled the basic requirements necessary to provide the seventh tranche of the loan by the end of this year, Moscow will transfer another $ 200 million to Minsk.
At the moment, the government of Belarus owes Russia $ 6.5 billion. It should be noted that at the end of August last year, Moscow did not provide Minsk with another loan tranche of a billion dollars, and then blocked the transfer of two loans from the Eurasian Fund to the neighboring republic.
We also note that the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko systematically threatened to cut ties with Russia and even decided to refuse the loan. After that Minsk called on Moscow do not consider Belarus a “freeloader” and build relations only on an equal basis.