Who saved Hanna Lukashenko from European sanctions?

Lithuania proposed that the daughter-in-law of Aleksandr Lukashenko be added to the EU’s sanctions list, but its candidature was blocked by Slovakia. Buro received this information from three independent political, diplomatic and human rights sources.

Hanna Lukashenko is the only member of Belarus’s powerful family not to be hit by EU sanctions. Aleksandr Lukashenko, his sons Viktar and Dzmitry, and another daughter-in-law, Lilia, are already on the blacklist.

Hanna Lukashenko

Hanna Lukashenko. Source: sb.by

Hanna Lukashenko is married to Dzmitry Lukashenko, Aleksandr Lukashenko's middle son. She occupies the role of general producer at Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya, a company that holds government contracts for the production of entertainment content, frequently of a propagandistic nature. As we recently reported, Hanna Lukashenko conducted a covert election campaign in support of her father-in-law under the guise of the Unity Marathon initiative.

The woman's previous position was at the BelAZ Trading House, in which 45% is owned by the Presidential Sports Club, headed by Dzmitry Lukashenko. BelAZ Trading House has a dominant market share in the export of Belarusian dump trucks to Russia. The journalistic investigation revealed that Lukashenka's family and entourage were beneficiaries of such supplies.

On 5 August 2024, the EU adopted a further package of sanctions against the Belarusian authoritarian regime. There had been proposals to add Hanna Lukashenko’s name to the sanctions list, but these were blocked by a European country.

“Hanna L. [Hanna Lukashenko] was proposed by LT [Lithuania] and indeed blocked by SK [Slovakia]”, a European official told our colleagues from Vsquare.org.

The Lithuanian and Slovak foreign ministries have not confirmed or denied this information. The Slovak agency explained that each proposal for inclusion on the EU sanctions list is examined in detail in the view of the interests of the Slovak Republic and the EU and their impact, as well as on the subject of the legal justification and sustainability of the sanctions.

“Discussion of EU sanctions proposals is conducted in a non-public mode, and the political and legal aspects of sanctions proposals are considered. If these are assessed as insufficient in terms of their defensibility before the EU courts, such a sanction motion is shelved”, the diplomats told our colleagues from the Slovakian Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak.

Slovakia’s current prime minister, Robert Fico, is in favour of normalising relations with Russia and Belarus. Aleksandr Lukashenko invited him to visit the Brest Fortress in May this year. Fico had already visited Minsk in 2016 during his previous term as prime minister. At a meeting with Lukashenko, he called Belarus a friendly country. Lukashenko then expressed gratitude to the Slovakian prime minister for the normalisation of relations between Belarus and the EU.

Robert Fico

Robert Fico (on the right) in a meeting with Aleksandr Lukashenko. Source: president.gov.by

“Your country has informed the EU leadership about the real situation in Belarus”, Lukashenko said.

Last year, Lukashenko and Fico exchanged congratulations on the occasion of their 70th and 60th anniversaries, respectively.

We are grateful to the Lithuanian Investigative Centre Siena for its invaluable assistance in preparing this article