In January 2009, that is, during the previous (2008–2010) thaw between Belarus and the West, the International Monetary Fund set up a line of credit for Minsk worth $2.46 billion and then increased it to $3.56 billion precisely when (June 2009) Russia reneged on transmitting the final $500,000 portion of its own $2 billion loan to Belarus (Grigory Ioffe, Reassessing Lukashenka: Belarus in Geopolitical and Cultural Context, 2014, p. 88). Just weeks ago, in February 2016, the 2009 situation—or rather its mirror image—was replayed. This time, concerned about Belarus cozying up to Europe, Russia announced that its much-delayed (and even …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation