Expert explained why other countries will suffer more from closing borders with Belarus

The Lithuanian Interior Ministry proposes to close two more checkpoints on the border with Belarus: political analyst Aleksandr Shpakovsky explained in his talk with Alfa Radio what consequences Vilnius will face if such a decision is made

The expert recalled that such threats from neighbouring countries are heard not for the first time.

“Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have been shouting throughout the summer that they will completely block the state border. I know that this behaviour was accompanied by bringing to the Belarusian side certain demands in an ultimatum form that we must fulfil. Lithuania, Poland, Latvia have repeatedly experienced that we do not negotiate with terrorists and blackmailers. Blackmail won’t work. All issues relating to Belarus’ internal policy remain issues of the internal policy of Belarus. No one will be allowed to interfere in them,” said Aleksandr Shpakovsky.

According to him, certain ‘goodwill gestures’ that the Belarusian leadership can make will be exclusively manifestations of domestic political decisions taken by the official Minsk for its own reasons, and not under the pressure of external factors.

“Therefore, it was not possible to blackmail us by closing the border. Moreover, if we make elementary calculations, we will understand that Lithuania, Latvia and Poland – which are also transit countries – will suffer the most from the closure of borders. Moreover, they have access to the sea, and, accordingly, the port infrastructure will be underutilised. They hope to compensate for all this by increasing the flow of military cargo to Ukraine. But now there are more and more signals that the Ukrainian conflict can be settled on a peaceful basis in the operational perspective. It’s too early to talk about this, but such a statement of the issue cannot be discounted,” the political analyst underlined.

Aleksandr Shpakovsky drew attention to the fact that even if the conflict does not end in the near future and the supply of military cargo to Ukraine continues, sooner or later the confrontation will end anyway.

“Meanwhile, the Chinese, Russian, and Belarusian cargo flows will already be redirected to other logistics routes. It should be mentioned that the port in Riga and the port in Klaipeda are on the verge of survival nowadays. Railways in Latvia and Lithuania are laying off thousands of workers. In many ways, these infrastructure facilities were adjusted to the flow of goods from Russia and Belarus,” added the political analyst.

As Aleksandr Shpakovsky noted, despite the threats from neighbouring countries, the border is still not blocked.

“They threaten to close two more border crossings. Let them do it. In principle, we initially prepared for the fact that they would completely block the border. Our Government has a solution in this direction,” the political analyst noted.

He added that Belarus will be ready even for the worst case scenario, our country will survive in any case.