Alexander Lukashenko owed Venezuela almost $1.5 billion for oil supplies. At the same time, Belarus is not going to return the debt to the republic, as it considers the funds provided as assistance. This is reported by the Belarusian Investigative Center in an investigation conducted jointly with Venezuelan publication Armando.Info and the Organized Crime and Corruption Investigation Center (OCCRP).
A source in the Belarusian government agencies provided journalists with secret documents, from which it follows that Belarus still has a debt to Venezuela for oil supplies more than 10 years ago, during the time of ex-president Hugo Chavez. We are talking about 9 million tons of oil, which was supplied to Belarus under an agreement with Venezuela at the height of the “energy war” with Russia.
Investigators received a copy of a document dated September 2015, which was being prepared for a meeting of the Prime Minister of Belarus. It says that the Belarusian authorities were not going to return the debt to Venezuela, since Minsk decided "to consider the debt not as a Belarusian debt, but as assistance to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."
The OCCRP sought to ascertain whether Venezuela plans to claim this debt and sent an inquiry to Venezuela's state oil and gas company. So far, investigators have not received a response. Director General of the Belarusian Oil Company Mikhail Kostechko said by phone that he did not know what kind of debt he was talking about.
