In a statement Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said, Western sanctions have blocked $16 to $18 billion worth of its annual exports to the European Union.

Belarus has been hit by sanctions by the West after Russia sent troops into Ukraine on in what it called a “special military operation” designed to demilitarise and “denazify” its neighbour.

“Because of the sanctions, almost all of Belarus’s exports to the countries of the European Union and North America have been blocked,” said Golovchenko, according to a transcript of an interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television published by the Belta state news agency. “This … comes to about $16 billion to $18 billion a year.”

Insisting that Belarus must be involved in negotiations, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Minsk had been unfairly labelled as “an accomplice of the aggressor” by Ukraine.

In 2021, Belarus faced heavy sanctions after it intercepted a Ryanair plane flying between Athens and Vilnius and arrested a dissident journalist and his girlfriend once the plane landed.

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