Violation of Belarusian airspace strengthens suspicions against the authorities

The way the Belarusian authorities chose to respond to the incident with violation Belarusian airspace only reinforces suspicions against them. Explanations given by the authorities, in the worst case scenario, allow for assumptions there are shadow cargo transportation schemes at the Belarusian border.

On July 26^th, at a meeting with representatives of the State Border Committee and the Ministry of Defense, President Lukashenko admitted that on July 4^th the Belarusian airspace has been violated by a light-plane and demanded to punish the perpetrators.

President’s reference to the incident after three weeks implies its high importance. Despite the careful concealment by the government agencies, the incident couldn’t longer be ignored. It is likely that this issue was raised in one way or another during the Minsk visit of a Russian delegation headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on July 18^th.

Statements made by President imply that in certain cases, a foreign aircraft can cross the Belarusian border without being detected by the air defense system, but by other means (eg, visually). Therefore the absence of the official response regarding the incident during 3 weeks could be attributed to the reluctance to recognize this fact, and not to the air defense system vulnerability.

In particular, on July 11^th, Air Force and Air Defense Commander Mr. Pahmelkin said that the Belarusian air defense system has not confirmed a violation of the airspace by an unidentified aircraft. In turn, on July 26^th, President Lukashenko said that the plane was timely detected, but those responsible have not stopped it.

Thus, putting two and two together, one may assume that sometimes there are ‘ad hoc’ or ‘manual’ border crossings, without the involvement of the air defense system, which is formally part of the joint Russo-Belarusian air defense system. Consequently, this conclusion leads to other, more serious questions: how often this ‘mode’ is used and what for?

Despite the lack of evidence of Belarusian authorities’ participation in shadow turnover schemes, the way they chose to respond to July 4^th provocation only strengthens such suspicions. Moreover, the likely involvement of Belarus in gray re-exports of Russian oil masked as solvents in order to avoid customs duties make the situation even more complicated and damages authorities’ image.

For instance, on July 26^th, an anonymous source in the Russian Energy said that Russia may introduce duties on solvents exports outside the Customs Union, or even restrict oil deliveries to Belarus. This could be a hoax, but the absence of a coherent response by Belarus to the smuggling accusations is an indirect indication of their validity.