The United States has lifted sanctions on the Belarusian airline “Belavia” and one of the aircraft used by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. This is reported in a statement by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
As stated in the OFAC document, the sanctions imposed against “Belavia” pursuant to US Presidential Decree No. 14038 have been lifted. This gives the company the opportunity to once again participate in financial and commercial transactions that were previously blocked by sanctions restrictions.
A Bombardier Challenger 850 aircraft with the registration number EW-301PJ has also been removed from the sanctions. According to information from the Belarusian publication “Zerkalo”, this aircraft is used by both high-ranking Belarusian officials and members of Lukashenko’s family.
The journalists drew attention to the fact that the American authorities have issued a license that temporarily allows operations with three aircraft associated with Alexander Lukashenko or the company Slavkali, which is under sanctions. These are aircraft with tail numbers EW-001PA, EW-001PB and EW-001PH.
As a reminder, on September 11, US presidential spokesman John Cole announced that the United States would lift sanctions on “Belavia”. According to him, this is “just the first step”. He also added that the US government plans to resume the work of the embassy in Belarus. The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) officially decided to lift sanctions on “Belavia” on September 17.
On October 31, Lukashenko stated that the West was allegedly constantly looking for a pretext to impose sanctions against Belarus. In particular, he recalled the sanctions imposed after the detention of one of the founders of the Nexta publication, Roman Protasevich. According to Lukashenko, such sanctions were unfair, because, as he claimed, Protasevich is an “agent of Belarusian intelligence”, and his detention was staged.
