Russia to vows cut Belarus power

MOSCOW: Russia will cut its power supplies to Belarus at the end of the day Tuesday after it neighbour's failure to make a late debt payment because of its economic crisis, Russia's electricity holding company said.

The cutoff will go into effect on Tuesday at 2000 GMT, said Anton Nazarov, spokesman for the company Inter RAO UES.

"We did not get the full payment amount and will have to fully stop electricity supplies at 00:00 hours Wednesday" Moscow time, Nazarov told AFP by telephone.

Belarus' power supplier "Belenergo does not have enough Russian rubles. They send us what they have. But what they are encountering is a more systemic problem."

Russia threatened to cut off supplies to Belarus last week before extending the deadline to help its traditional ally come up with the payment.

The new deadline expired on Tuesday morning and Nazarov said Russia was continuing to hold talks with Belarus.

Deliveries will be restored "as soon as the payment is made," the Russian company spokesman said. "Our contacts with them are very constructive."

The Vedomosti newspaper said the dispute revolved around a 600 million ruble ($21.2 million) payment for electricity supplies to Belarus in April.

The former Soviet republic receives only about a tenth of its electricity from Russia but was hit by a politically damaging partial deliveries shutdown this month that underscored the severity of its current economic downturn.

Belarus says it has enough local currency to make the payment but lacks enough Russian rubles in its state accounts to make the required conversion.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011