Because, as the article explains, what happened with IT was despite economic policy not because of it. And I think a reasonable person would make the compariso

Because, as the article explains, what happened with IT was despite economic policy not because of it. And I think a reasonable person would make the comparison with Ukraine: Belarus didn't keep a balance, they are effectively run by Russia (iirc, Lukashenko and most of his associates are under sanction by the EU and can't travel there). Compare that to Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania...the difference should be quite obvious. Btw, just generally: Lukashenko is not a nice guy. He is one of the more anti-semitic political leaders out there (and the competition is stiff). The human rights stuff and election rigging is also unusually bad.