Belarusian law enforcers have raided the headquarters of Belgazprombank, the local operation of Russian state-owned bank Gazprombank, as a part of their tax evasion investigation. Over the past two decades, Belgazprombank was headed by Viktor Babariko, an outspoken critic of Belarusian authoritarian President Alexandr Lukashenko.

On June 11, officers of the Department for Financial Investigations at Belarusian State Control Committee (SCC) raided Belgazprombank as a part of a tax evasion and money-laundering case. Suspects in the case included representatives of private companies, as well as former and current bank managers, according to the SCC.

Babariko stepped down from his post in May with the aim of taking part in the August presidential election campaign. Belgazprombank is amongst the top-five largest Belarusian banks by assets. On June 11, the lender's shareholders – Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom and state-owned Gazprombank – declared their "full support" for the Belarusian operation.

Babariko collected more than 285,000 ballot access signatures as of June 10, while the necessary minimum is 100,000 signatures.

On June 11, the banker-turned-politician branded the raid as politically motivated, adding that this action had targeted "people closely connected" with him. He apologised to Belgazprombank managers and his friends, who, he said, "have the misfortune of having their childhood friend decide to run for the position of president," news agency BelaPAN reported the same day.

Belarusian law enforcers the same day also raided offices of local leasing company Privatleasing, which has been a client of Belgazprombank, and insurance company Kravira. On June 12, RFER/RL reported that the chief of the bank's office in the eastern city of Mogilev was detained.by law enforcers. 

A dispute with Gazprom

The raids of Belgazprombank's headquarters in Minsk happened against a background of a snowballing dispute between Belarus and Gazprom over natural gas supplies. In late May, Gazprom accused the Belarusian government of accumulating $166mn of debt for supplied gas.

"The total amount of Belarusian debt for the supply of Russian gas as of today is $165.57mn. As soon as the debt is fully settled, the Russian side will be ready to schedule negotiations on the terms of gas supplies beginning on January 1, 2021," news agency Interfax quoted Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller as saying on May 29.

The same day, the Belarusian Energy Ministry said Minsk owes no debt to Russia's Gazprom for gas, according to state-controlled media.

Belarusian PM Sergei Rumas believes that the cash-strapped country has "a great chance" to secure the downward revision of natural gas prices for Belarus in 2020. "I think we have a great chance to agree on a fair gas price for Belarus in 2020. I hope Russia will take our position into account," Rumas said on May 14 following his meeting with President Lukashenko. The president said that Russia sells natural gas in Europe "during [these] difficult times at a price [of] under $70 per 1,000 cubic metres to the EU member states, while at $127 to Belarus."

"Such things will not work. I am not even talking about the year of the 75th anniversary [of the Victory in the Second World War], when Germany gets natural gas at the price under $70, according to the information I have, but not at $127, the price set for Belarus," said the president.

In late April, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia was not going to revise downward natural gas prices for Belarus in 2020. The Belarusian government is seeking to reduce the price Belarus pays for Russian natural gas in 2020, which has been raised, Energy Minister Viktor Karankevich said on April 9.

Heated election campaign

On June 1, Lukashenko pledged to prevent Ukraine-style street protests in his country during the August presidential election. "The goals are clear: to organise a Maidan in the run-up to the presidential election or on voting day. That was their plan. Using this meeting I would like to warn you and all people who will hear us, I want to warn all those ‘Maidan fanatics' that there will be no Maidans in Belarus," he said.

The statement appeared against a background of thousands of people gathering in Minsk and other major Belarusian cities on May 31 to protest against Lukashenko's rule and taking part in collecting signatures in support of opposition presidential bidders. In Minsk, some 2,000 people attended a protest.

Political tensions in Belarus have started to increase since the arrest of Sergei Tsikhanovski, a nationally known popular blogger who is critical of the Belarusian authorities, on May 29. He was arrested while he and his supporters were collecting signatures in support of his wife’s presidential bid in the western city of Grodna.

On June 1, four Belarusian human rights groups declared that the detained Tsikhanovski was a political prisoner and demanded his immediate release.

In May-June, Belarusian law enforcers detained or arrested hundreds of anti-government protestors, activists and journalists in different regions of the country.