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26 I Companies & Markets bne February 2021
have harassed and arrested all of the other members of the Coordinating Council.
Maria Kolesnikova was snatched from the street and driven to the Ukrainian border where security services officers tried to force her to cross, until she ripped up her passport, making it impossible for her to leave the country. She disappeared for a day, eventually turning up in a Minsk jail where she has been charged with trying to organise a coup d'état. She has been in jail ever since.
Sergey Dylevsky was detained for organising strikes at the Minsk Tractor Plant, but was released after a month and is now the only other member of the Coordinating Council at liberty, but has dropped off the radar recently.
Bogretsov says the Coordinating Council is fighting back
and turning the screws on the authorities by painstakingly documenting all the beating and abuses by the police and security services, as the Coordinating Council intends to bring all the officers responsible to book after Lukashenko falls.
“When we take power we will follow the law and go after all the violators,” says Bogretsov, who says they have already documented hundreds of cases.
But first the people need to force Lukashenko out of office. The Kremlin doesn't like him, but as Lukashenko has systematically repressed the opposition, and even had some of its most prominent members killed in 2010 according to reports, there is no obvious domestic candidate to replace him.
“Putin hates Lukashenko but he can’t associate with street
E-grocery in Russia estimated to reach $1.9bn in 2020, growing to $8bn by 2023
bne IntelliNews
E-grocery in Russia is estimated at RUB145bn ($1.9bn) in 2020 and is forecast to grow to RUB605bn ($8bn) by 2023, online retail consultant InfoLine said on November 25.
E-commerce is rapidly increasing its contribution to total food retail sales, which are expected to rise from less than 1% to 3% in Russia versus 3.5% across developed markets, reports VTB.
www.bne.eu
protests. He doesn't like any of the options available to him,” says Bogretsov. “It’s like a dysfunctional family with a 26-year- old living in the cellar. You scold him this week, but next week you give him money.”
Bogretsov says the Coordinating Council has tried to approach the Russian government but has been met with a brick wall.
“None of the politicians in Russia want to touch this with
a six-foot pole,” says Bogretsov. The only contact they have is through the Russian think-tanks that have contact with the government. “They say it’s very tough. A change of president through a democratic election could bring stability but that is so unnatural in Russia, which deals mostly in personalities.”
That might be starting to change now. The Kremlin is starting to move away from its personalities-driven foreign policies, analyst Dmitri Trenin of the Carneigie Moscow Centre recently argued in a paper, but if so that change is going too slowly to be of help to the Belarusian people.
In the meantime, Tikhanovskaya recently called on Putin for a meeting, to no avail. Bogretsov says that the Coordinating Council may have to make compromises if it is to open talks with the Kremlin as an obvious way of breaking the stand-off with the authorities.
“We might have to take some steps backwards and find an intermediary that is acceptable to the Kremlin like [former German chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder,” says Bogretsov. “It won’t be pleasant, but we need to find a way to resolve this.”
Russian retail sales
“Express-delivery is in our view the most rapidly growing niche and is in great demand in cities with a population of over 1mn. It was pioneered by Samokat, later followed by Yandex.Lavka,” VTB Capital (VTBC) said in a note.
As bne IntelliNews reported, e-commerce is booming and is expected to make up 20% of all retail sales by 2024 from approximately 9% anticipated at the end of this year.