Biden extended sanctions against the authorities of Belarus for a year Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden extended sanctions against some members of the Belarusian government for a year, the restrictions will remain in force after June 16, 2023, the White House press service reports.

"The actions and policies of certain members of the Belarusian government and others, and the harmful activities and long-standing abuses of the Belarusian regime, continue to pose an unusual and exceptional threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," Biden said in a statement.

The White House noted that the first sanctions against Belarus were introduced in 2006 in connection with the "undemocratic elections" that took place that year, human rights violations, "political repression" and corruption. In 2006, Washington, among other things, imposed sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (then he took the post of head of state for the third time).

In 2021, Washington expanded sanctions against the authorities of the republic after the presidential elections in August 2020 (then, after another victory of Lukashenka, there were protests in Belarus). Then the restrictions affected, among other things, Belarusian officials and government agencies, energy and financial organizations and their leaders. That year, the Belarusian president, commenting on the sanctions imposed by Western countries, called them "gangster."

However, in January 2023, he decided to "thank" the United States and Western countries for the sanctions. “I want to thank the Americans and the entire Western world for imposing sanctions against us. Otherwise, not Belarusian tractors, but American and German ones would have stood on this huge field,” Lukashenka said during the ceremony of handing over Belarusian equipment to the leadership of Zimbabwe.