By Anastasia Lyrchikova
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia cut electricity supplies to Belarus on Wednesday and forced the country, which faces one of the worst economic crises of President Alexander Lukashenko's 17-year rule, to pay millions of dollars of overdue power bills.
Russia's troubled western neighbour, struggling with a balance of payments crisis that has forced it to devalue its currency, ran up arrears on electricity imports that make up around 10 percent of its power consumption.
Russian electricity exporter InterRAO said late on Wednesday it had received payment in full from Minsk and that supplies would be resumed within a couple days after it had cut power exports to the former Soviet country from midnight.
Belarus owed 1.2 billion roubles (26.7 million pounds) for electricity supplied in March, April and May.
"We received the money," said InterRAO spokesman Anton Nazarov, who said exports would start early on Thursday.
"From 0000 (midnight), supplies to Belarus were cut to zero," he said.
An unnamed official from Belarus' central bank was quoted by Russian news agency Interfax as saying Minsk planned to pay its outstanding debts on Wednesday.
Belarus is a major conduit for Russian oil and gas exports westward to European Union countries and its previous price disputes with Moscow have disrupted these supplies.
Belarus imports power which is in some cases cheaper than domestically produced electricity, but has enough capacity at its own plants to meet local demand.
The power cuts had no visible effect on power consumption in the capital, a Reuters witness said.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, insisted on Tuesday that politics had nothing to do with the electricity dispute with Minsk.
But Moscow is pushing Lukashenko, in power since 1994, to sell off assets which are being eyed by some of Russia's most powerful business groups.
The currency crisis led to a 36 percent devaluation of the Belarussian rouble last month and economic hardship in the shape of price hikes and a shortage of imported goods has triggered protests in the tightly-controlled state.
(Additional reporting by Andrei Makhovsky; writing by Thomas Grove and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by James Jukwey and Anthony Barker)
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