{"id":98932,"date":"2024-08-03T19:49:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-03T16:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/98932\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","slug":"businessman-killing-off-economy-with-sanctions-a-dead-end-road","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/98932\/","title":{"rendered":"Businessman: killing off economy with sanctions “a dead-end road”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

August 3, Pozirk.<\/em><\/strong> A member of the opposition Coordination Council, Alaksandar Knyrovi\u010d, has expressed support for “individual, targeted technological sanctions” against Belarus but rejected measures that would completely ruin its economy for contributing to Russia’s war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Alaksandar Knyrovi\u010d at the New Belarus Conference 2024\n <\/div>\n \n
\n (The Office of \u015aviat\u0142ana Cichano\u016dskaja)<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The businessman and blogger told the New Belarus Conference 2024 in Vilnius that the size of the Belarusian economy is $70 billion, of which some $13 billion goes to the budget and $6 billion to pensions and other benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Of this $19 billion, about one billion is spent on the security system \u2013 the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB and the courts. Everything else benefits Belarusians,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a small part of the state funds allocated to support the economy in 2023, about $2.5 billion, was spent on the defense sector, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stressed that repression and the war industry are only a small piece of the pie. 80 percent of the economy supports the country’s citizens, including doctors, teachers and pensioners, he argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Killing off the economy because a part of it works for the war is a disastrous and dead-end road,” Knyrovi\u010d said. Sanctions, he concluded, should be “a red card for the dictator,” not ordinary Belarusians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years years, democratic countries have imposed multiple restrictions on Belarus over human rights abuses, alleged vote rigging in the 2020 presidential election, a brutal crackdown on protesters, the forced landing of a Ryanair flight, a migration crisis at the European Union border, as well as support of Russia’s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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