MINSK, February 16. /TASS/. The US-led Western crusade to crank up pressure on Belarus, even through sanctions, won’t produce the result that the West expects, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said at a press conference on Wednesday.

"The sanctions pressure by the West on our country has only intensified. The goal is not even camouflaged anymore. It is necessary to destabilize the socio-political situation, choke the economy and cause a breakdown in the quality of life for the utmost number of residents. <...> It is already clear that these attempts fell through and [the expected results] will never be achieved," he said.

According to the Belarusian top diplomat, in many ways the West’s pressure facilitated Belarusian enterprises becoming "more mobile, flexible, and capable of successfully diversifying and in many cases even boosting the deliveries of their export products."

The foreign minister also noted an unprecedented information pressure on Belarus, noting, in particular, the migrant border crisis and the Ryanair incident.

On August 9, 2020, Belarus held its presidential election which, according to the Central Election Commission’s official results, incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won by a landslide, his closest rival in the race, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, came in second. However, she refused to recognize the election’s outcome and left the country along with several opposition figures. Following the vote, mass demonstrations protesting the election’s outcome engulfed Belarus, which in the first days resulted in clashes between the protesters and police. Later, the mass unrest and demonstrations carried on countrywide for several months. The West did not recognize the results of the presidential election and called the measures undertaken by the Belarusian authorities to curb the protest rallies excessively harsh. As a result, the EU introduced five sanctions packages against Belarusian officials and a number of companies.

The US Department of Treasury also introduced sovereign debt restrictions on Belarus, banning transactions with new bonds released after December 2, 2021, and with a maturity over 90 days. Additionally, due to the migrant crisis and in light of claims of the infringement of civil liberties in the republic, 20 individuals and 12 legal entities, as well as three aircraft were added to the sanctions lists. The UK and Canadian authorities announced the introduction of additional sanctions.

Belarus announced that starting on January 1, 2022, it introduced a food embargo on products from the countries that conduct unfriendly policy towards it. Since January 1, the ban on import includes a number of products from EU countries, the US, Canada, Norway, Albania, Iceland, North Macedonia, the UK and Northern Ireland, Montenegro and Switzerland.