Today they say it’s today: the transit of Russian diesel oil through Belarus to Latvia will be resumed. A week ago Minsk ordered to stop the flow through the Belarusian section of the pipeline owned by a Russian company demanding to fix hundreds of defects.

The problems sound conomic but they are political. Latvia is not getting its diesel oil because of the complexities in Belarus-Russia relations.

Minsk is losing the dearest – its reputation of a reliable transit country and the advantage over Ukraine it gained in the ‘gas wars’ – as an outsider, of course. Stable political relations with Russia guaranteed EU predictable relations with Minsk. It seems to be no longer the case.

There were quarrels over Belarusian milk, sugar, meat, agricultural machinery exports and gas and beer imports from Russia. This time it’s diesel oil. It used to concern only bilateral relations but this time it affects Latvia as well.

The experts notice that the transit of Russian diesel oil was stopped after a senior Russian official left Minsk. What have they failed to agree on? Nobody says.

Then Belarusian MFA warned in a statement that entry into Abkhazia and South Ossetia is only allowed from the Georgian municipalities, entry from all other areas without a special permit of the Georgian authority is penalised under the Criminal Code of Georgia. Belarus hasn’t recognized those two countries, but the statement is no accident. As a result Georgia hailed the statement… and a reported illness prevented Moscow governor Luzhkov to come to Belarus to open the long-awaited House of Moscow.

On July 28 Belarus FM will come to Brussels for a Troika meeting. But it’s unlikely that Minsk is complicating its relations with Russia in order to thaw them with Brussels. It is the same as cutting off your nose to spite your face.

But the tensions with Russia are getting dangerous.