Russia banned pork imports from Belarus yesterday, stepping up a diplomatic and trade war over the arrest of a Russian businessman and threatening to deepen the isolation of its former Soviet ally.

Russia is one of Belarus’s few diplomatic backers after 19 years of authoritarian rule by President Alexander Lukashenko but has responded furiously to the arrest this week of Vladislav Baum­gertner, head of Russian potash company Uralkali.

Baumgertner was seized on Monday at the airport outside the Belarussian capital Minsk after being invited to talks with the Prime Minister, and then humiliated by TV footage showing him being searched in his prison cell.

Since then, Russian officials have announced a 25 per cent drop in oil supplies to Belarus in September, threatened to extend the cuts for several months and hinted at possible restrictions on imports of Belarussian dairy products.

Russia’s veterinary regulator said the restrictions on hog and pork product imports had been imposed over concerns about African swine fever in Belarus and would not be lifted until the virus was wiped out or brought under control.

The moves could deal a significant blow to Belarus, a transit country for Russian oil and natural gas to Europe. Its economy, already in danger of collapse, is heavily reliant on agriculture and Russian oil supplies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said nothing in public about the dispute but his foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Moscow was counting on Belarus freeing Baumgertner quickly and described the dispute as commercial but not political. Russia has denied any of the economic or trade moves this week were connected with Baumgertner’s arrest but the timing undermines these statements.

Belarus has defied the pressure, charging Baumgertner with abuse of his authority and threatening criminal charges against Suleiman Kerimov, Uralkali’s top shareholder and a Kremlin ally.

But Belarus needs Russia for energy and economic handouts and as a counterweight to the EU and the US, which shun President Lukashenko because of his treatment of opponents and lack of tolerance for dissent.

Russia is also in a dispute with Ukraine, another former Soviet republic which Moscow wants to dissuade from closer integration with the West.

Western European countries are following the situation closely because oil supply cuts in the past to Ukraine and Belarus have caused disruptions to pipeline flows to Europe.

Moscow says Kiev must choose between free trade with the EU and a Russia-led customs union that also includes Belarus, and wants control of Ukraine’s gas pipeline network. But Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich stood firm yesterday, saying: “We will not trade up our country – that is our principle.”

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