Expert: Lithuania would continue to impose sanctions on Belaruskali if the US lifts them

Lithuania would continue to impose sanctions on the Belarusian fertiliser giant „Belaruskalij“, even if they were lifted by the United States of America, as the sanctions on the producer of potash fertilisers are also imposed by the European Union, said former deputy director of the Office of Financial Crime Investigation, Mindaugas Petrauskas.   

„If the Americans removed potash fertilisers (their producer „Belaruskalij“ – BNS) and the European Union left, we would still comply (with the sanctions regime – BNS)“,– Mindaugas Petrauskas, who now works as head of financial crime prevention at payments analytics and anti-money laundering solutions company „Amlyze“, told LRT radio on Friday.  

„Lithuania is subject to mandatory sanctions by the European Union and the United Nations. All other countries, including America, the United Kingdom or Ukraine, are not bound by them, but are only recommended to comply with them," Petrauskas added.  

Belarus last year appealed to the General Court of the European Union (CJEU) to lift the sanctions against Belaruskali, he said, but the decision was negative – the court ruled that the sanctions had been imposed lawfully. 

BNS wrote in September last year that the CJEU had rejected a request by „Belaruskali“, a subsidiary of the export company „Belarusskaya kalinaya kompaniya“ (BKK), to annul the EU Council's June 2022 and February 2023 decisions to add it to the list of sanctioned entities, on the grounds that it is a state-owned enterprise – an export arm of one of the largest sources of income for the regime of the country's authoritarian leader, Aliaksandr Lukashenko, with monopoly rights, concessions granted by the Mink regime and 20% of its exports.

The years-long transit of „Belaruskalij“'s fertiliser through Lithuania will be terminated in February 2022, after the government's Strategic Transactions Review Commission and later the government, citing US sanctions, ruled that the Belarusian company's contract with „Lietuvos geležinkeliai“ was not in the country's security interests. In early March 2022, „Belaruskalij“ was sanctioned by the EU.

A National Security Threat Assessment published by the Department of State Security and the Second Department of Operational Services states that it is very likely that Belarus hopes to regain the opportunity to export potash fertilisers through Lithuania, which is why „Belaruskalij“ and its representatives have so far been trying to maintain business relations in Lithuania.