Gray Cat Blogger: Lukashenko Has Run Out Of Money

• 11.03.2026, 18:39

Delayed wages, debts and budget deficits are becoming more prominent.

Dictator Lukashenko has been saying for many years that sanctions supposedly do not affect the Belarusian economy. But after the extension of the EU restrictions, Prime Minister Alexander Turchin suddenly demanded to more actively pursue their lifting, showing how painful they have become for the regime.

Why have the Belarusian authorities started talking about the need to lift the sanctions again? What does Turchin's statement say about the real state of the Belarusian economy?

About this, Charter97.org talked to the famous blogger and former political prisoner Dmitry Kozlov ("Gray Cat"):

- All Lukashenko's statements that the sanctions do not work are just a showy bravado to say, look, "it doesn't hurt us, it doesn't affect us". I think it is more aimed at the internal audience, at the Belarusian propaganda to show the people that the sanctions are untenable. However, the situation is quite different.

I read statistics from the websites of the eastern regions of Belarus - Vitebsk voblast, Mogilev voblast - and everything is very, very deplorable there. There are delays in wages, in some collective farms they don't pay wages for three months or even more. The standard of living has fallen very badly, there are big debts, the budget deficits of different districts of Vitsebsk voblast are constantly being rewritten. All this information is available, you can always check it.

Why did Turchin start talking about it now? The point is that Lukashenko has long wanted to reach an agreement, but he needs to save face. Naturally, for his propaganda he wants to show that he is the hero, and Europe is naturally bad. But the situation is such that the foreign policy environment is clearly not in his favor. Trump is gradually removing his fellow dictators: Assad has been removed, Maduro, and now he is taking on the Ayatollah regime in Iran. And he fears that he may become one of the next victims, so he wants to make friends with Trump.

The more so now that the situation is such that they are trying to somehow negotiate around Ukraine, Lukashenko wants to be useful and may be thinking of playing on it somehow, because there is no money. We know that there was this whole situation with lighting, when they turned off the lights in the cities, trying to save money. There are other different things. Sanctions are working, and they are not just working - they are effective.

- On February 26, the EU extended sanctions against Lukashenko's regime for another year. What sanctions does the EU still need to impose for Lukashenko's regime to really feel the heavy blow?"

- Even the sanctions that are already in place are hitting very hard. In 2022, when sanctions related to woodworking were introduced, it was felt very strongly. Even being in Belarusian prisons, I saw it, it was noticeable, because in many zones there is woodworking, and they produced pallets, furniture, various other goods made of wood and sold them to Europe, as it was the most profitable.

What new sanctions can there be? In principle, metal processing and potash are already under sanctions, all the important goods. The economy of Belarus is degrading. It would be possible to simply expand the list of enterprises, I think. And the fact that Europe does not lift the sanctions, but leaves them, at least for now, is a good thing, because Lukashenko, in principle, is not making any steps towards improvement. The fact that he exemplarily released some number of political prisoners under the deal with the Americans, - at least he has imprisoned no less number of them. So it doesn't play any role.

- Can sanctions lead to the release of all Belarusian political prisoners, and what is needed for this to happen? And, in fact, those releases, which we have already seen, were achieved precisely thanks to the sanctions. Because if there were no sanctions, there would be nothing to bargain with. Lukashenko would simply not release anyone - why would he do that? He would have just kept everyone until either something concrete changed in the policy of Western countries, or until his regime collapsed and fell.

What else could be done? First of all, we should talk about the need to stop repression, the full release of all political prisoners, the removal of all kinds of discriminatory articles, such as various "extremist" articles, restrictions on the work of journalists, and so on. Because people are constantly being persecuted.

Only recently I talked to a friend in Belarus, and he says that everything is very sad: people are afraid, they are intimidated, they can't talk openly about anything, everyone is checked. They say that they check people at the borders, they look through their phones and contents. So the regime is afraid, and this should be used.