​The European Union will introduce new sanctions against Belarus in the context of maintaining pressure on Russia to end the war against Ukraine and expand measures against countries that support Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday, cit. Reuters and Agerpres.

“We will put as much pressure on the Kremlin as necessary with a tough sanctions regime. We will extend these sanctions to those who militarily support Russia’s war, such as Belarus and Iran,” von der Leyen said at a press conference held alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and European Council President Charles Michel.

“And we will propose new sanctions against Belarus in response to its role in this Russian war in Ukraine,” added the head of the EU executive.

Belarus has assured that it does not want to directly participate in the war, but this country allowed the deployment of Russian troops on its territory, which Russia used as a logistical platform for the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February last year.

In October, Minsk and Moscow announced joint military forces, and the Ukrainian military expressed concerns about the “growing threat” of a new Russian offensive from Belarus, its northern neighbor.

According to the Ministry of Defense in Minsk, “up to 9,000 Russian troops” and about 170 tanks were stationed in Belarus.

Belarus has already declared default

Ursula von der Leyen’s comments on Tuesday came after the signing in Brussels of an agreement to strengthen cooperation between the EU and NATO, when the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, promised new aid to Ukraine.

He warned that Russia should not be underestimated, but stressed that Moscow had failed to divide the West over its support for Ukraine to defend against Russia’s biggest incursion into Europe since the end of World War II.

In mid-July last year, rating agency Moody’s predicted that Belarus would default on Western sanctions after it defaulted on $22.9 million in Belarus-27 Eurobonds.

The Ministry of Finance in Minsk made this payment in the national currency of the Belarusian ruble, due to which the bondholders were unable to receive payments.

Moody’s agency notes in an assessment published just two days later that “the payment of foreign currency debt in rubles is a default.”

The European Union does not recognize Alexander Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus, accusing him of falsifying the 2020 presidential elections.

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