After the incident which occurred not more than a week ago. Of a young journalist arrested after the dictator of Belarus hijacked his plane, the US has also decided to impose sanctions on Belarus. The full story for the incident can be found here.

Sanctions

The 2019 agreement was called off earlier agreed upon Washington and Minsk that they can use each other’s airspace for carrier and trade purposes. This means both countries can’t fly over each other’s airspaces any more. This move is similar to what the EU did immediately following the incident which occurred.

The spokesperson said that US is working closely with EU to decide which sanctions to put on Belarus. As both the bodies are not convinced over mere airspace embargos and wish to take stronger steps against such atrocities.

The US is also looking forward to putting business sanctions on Belarussian state-owned enterprises and wish to take stronger steps to cripple the Lukashenko government.

Russia factor

Biden and Putin haven’t been getting along well since beginning. And the reason why America is taking tougher steps can also be explained by the involvement of Russia in this issue. Russia is giving $500 million loan to Belarus to help its economy. Along with this as the airspace sanctions come from the West, Putin would like to increase the flights among Russia and Belarus. As the West imposes embargos, Russia invites the dictator to a Moscow summit. Despite the arrested blogger’s girlfriend being Russian who is also detained alongside him, the Russian authorities couldn’t care less.