belarus Tightening Its Belt in russia’s Wake

russia ended the quarter with a decline in GDP – for the first time in several years. The ministry of finance of the rf exhausted its annual deficit limit in just three months. Ports are ablaze, and so are oil refineries. For belarus, this isn’t just bad news from a neighbor – it’s the immediate future.

There is a consistent pattern between the two economies: russia’s problems become belarus’ ones with a three- to four-month delay. The minsk regime knows this and has already begun to save money.

The regional program “One District – One Project”, with a budget of 9 billion rubles, has barely reached the halfway mark: 98 out of 220 projects have been completed. The rest, judging by the shift in government rhetoric, will not receive funding. The official explanation is a shortage of labor in the regions. But those same regions, with the same demographic indicators, were part of the program from the start.

In the agricultural sector, capital construction is giving way to temporary structures made of cheaper materials. Service life is being shortened, as are initial costs.

Regional healthcare is next. Public discussion of its “effectiveness” has recently begun for no apparent reason. In budget policy, such discussions usually precede cuts.

The February power outages initially appeared to be a technical measure. Now they seem like the first public demonstration that money is running out. Authorities of the rb have not called this a new course yet. But decisions have already been made, and the direction is clear: the country is withdrawing from programs that do not fit within the budget.