Following Babich. New envoy, old tasks


On April 30, Mikhail Babich was relieved from the post of Russian envoy in Minsk; on the same day, it became known that Dmitry Mezentsev would replace him.

Babich was a KGB officer in the Soviet times; under Putin’s rule he started serving in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). In August 2018, he was appointed not only Ambassador of Russia, but also Vladimir Putin‘s special representative in Belarus. His objective was to bring integration to a new level, both in the economic and political field. The Belarusian authorities apprehensively welcomed Babich. But in less than a year, the envoy was recalled.

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Babich is notorious for having a hand in the Crimean issue; he manned the embassy in Minsk with the people who were involved in the annexation of the peninsula. Unlike its predecessor Alexander Surikov, Babich demonstratively paid visits to Belarusian enterprises, engaged in controversies against the Belarusian Foreign Ministry and even president Lukashenka.

Babich’s actions in the field of information fuelled the new crises in the Belarusian-Russian relations.

“It is his repeatedly crossing the red lines set when Minsk was giving its agrement to him. It is establishing contacts with the opposition and the local authorities in circumvention of the Presidential Administration,” Arsen Sivitski, Director of the Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies, said.

According to him, Babich was not just a diplomat, but a silovik from Vladimir Putin’s inner circle who had a kind of mission, and it looks like that he has completed it.

“He clearly showed that Moscow and Minsk were having issues, and sent a message to the Belarusian society and elites that the Kremlin was considering various scenarios and options, including meddling in domestic political processes and the possibility of cooperating with other political forces,” the expert believes.

Interestingly, Dmitry Mezentsev, a former senator, Irkutsk ex-governor and a newly-appointed Ambassador of Russia to Belarus, passed PhD defense (the subject of his thesis was ‘Psychology of media on the formation of an individual’s political identity’). Not waiting for the Belarusian side’s reaction, the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs has stated that Mezentsev will deal with the same issues, i.e., among others, the Russia-Belarus integration. Moreover, it should be noted that Alyaksandr Lukashenka has not abandoned the old rhetoric either.

Meanwhile, on April 19, Belneftekhim Concern announced a ‘sharp deterioration’ of Russian oil quality, which is transited through the Druzhba pipeline. Moreover, unacceptably high content of organochlorine contaminants damaged expensive equipment at the Mazyr refinery.

Low-quality oil is still in the pipes, chlorine corrodes the equipment, the Belarusian refining industry is losing money. Notably, Moscow has already found one to blame – a small private company in Samara region. In addition, Minsk will require recovering damages.

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It seems that overcoming the current ‘oil’ crisis will be one of the new ambassador’s first tasks.

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