What Is Behind Lukashenko's Words About Air
- 8.11.2025, 14:47
Will Belarusian forests be put under the axe?
Exports of Belarusian goods collapsed in September. And since Belarusian tractors and combines are not selling, the Belarusian authorities have come up with another business plan.
Why Lukashenko wants to spoil the air - in the new issue of the program "Optimum" on the YouTube channel "Belarusians and the market".
In September, the fall of Belarusian exports amounted to 6%, if we count for nine months - almost 3%. Trade deficit alone was $741 million. So September was the blackest month for Belarusian foreign trade this year. At least, until they counted how Belarus traded in October.
But there's no need to worry. Alexander Lukashenko has a plan. If tractors are not sold, then we will sell air to Europe.
"Why the hell are we making these Europeans healthy? This is what we have in Belarus... Such a territory. Swamps, forests. And what is this? Oxygen. Who are we giving it to? To those stinking, roughly speaking, Europeans who strangle us every day... They will appreciate what Belarus is. And they will pay us for the fact that we saved it all".
Trading air is an ideal business plan from the point of view of the Belarusian authorities. Something that fully corresponds to Alexander Lukashenko's understanding of economic theories and practices. It is even better than potash fertilizers. Because potash fertilizers can still be delivered to the buyer with all these logistical difficulties, while air can be sold on the terms of auto delivery.
But every even ideal business plan has its drawbacks. The plan to trade air has two of them. First, Lithuania has closed the last border crossings. And how will you sell air with closed border crossings.
And, secondly, Europe wants to use our air for free, and the wind rose works as such an agent of the collective West.
"The EU has almost none of this, and the wind carries all this good in the form of clean air there," complained Alexander Lukashenko.
But there is a risk that if Lukashenko takes up the monetization of air, the same thing may happen to air as it happened to potatoes. Clean air will be in short supply.
And, by the way, about the shortage of clean air - this is not a joke at all. Because Lukashenko didn't just say that it's necessary to stop improving Europe with oxygen from Belarusian forests. He actually has a business plan to spoil the air in Belarus. Maybe not in the whole Belarus at once. It all requires a lot of effort and additional financial investments. But at least to start with the Berezinsk Biosphere Reserve.
When visiting the reserve, Alexander Lukashenko talked a lot about the need to protect nature, our mother, less. Because there is no benefit to the Belarusian authorities from protecting nature.
"In this way you feed and improve everything around you. Europe. Do we need to improve them for free? No. Let's do it for our own people. So that I, and he, and you, and your children can take something from it. It sounds a bit consumerist, but I want our people to get something from it," said Lukashenko.
That is, nature protection prevents the authorities from monetizing the Belarusian natural resources. To earn normal, big money. And Lukashenko said that we should take what we can from the Belarusian nature here and now.
"We must work for ourselves. Even as you say, where it is forbidden. We should use all the protected places for the sake of people."
And we even know the names of these people. And in fact, Lukashenko already has a concrete plan to develop at least the Berezinskiy reserve.
"You have 80 percent of the reserve, and 20 percent you can harvest timber," he said.
A month ago, Lukashenko signed a memorandum of understanding with Oman, under which Oman can invest $1.4 billion in Belarusian timber processing. During his visit to the reserve, Lukashenko recalled this deal.
"They will invest, put money - please. Let's together process this wood, which sometimes we can't shovel," he said.
That is, on the one hand, we see almost $1.5 billion, and on the other hand - the reserved Belarusian forest, which can be developed together with Arab sheikhs for this $1.5 billion. And for the Belarusian authorities the choice is, of course, obvious. It is clear that billions of dollars are more valuable to them than some protected forests and clean air, which can't be monetized with the current state of technology.
Lukashenko's visit to the Berezinsk reserve was just a part of the pre-sale preparation. To see on the spot if he has not cheapened the price. Because the Belarusian authorities need money, and money, as it is known, does not smell. The air might start to smell afterwards, but the next generations will deal with it.