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“Katyusha’s Calculation” doesn’t add up. A News.by anchor drew a faulty comparison between the wealth of Belarusians and Europeans
Ekaterina Tikhomirova spoke about Belarusians’ supposedly high purchasing power.
Belarusians have greater purchasing power than residents of Lithuania, Latvia and several other European countries, anchor Ekaterina Tikhomirova claimed on the program “Katyusha’s Calculation.” We found that the metric she cited does not reflect people’s actual standard of living.
How far Belarus supposedly outranks many European countries in purchasing power parity, anchor Ekaterina Tikhomirova said on October 27, 2025, on the program “Katyusha’s Calculation” on the First Information Channel. The segment was titled "No Time for Luxuries."
“Our line on the European ranking is 23rd. Poland comes in seventh, Lithuania 28th and Latvia 31st. In other words, Belarusians’ purchasing power compared with the residents of those so-called blooming Borrell gardens (a phrase coined after Spanish politician Josep Borrell likened Europe to a flourishing garden) is far higher — by twofold, even threefold.”
According to the International Monetary Fund, Belarus does indeed rank 23rd in Europe by GDP based on purchasing power parity. In 2025, the size of the Belarusian economy under this measure topped $311 billion — nearly twice that of Lithuania and three times that of Latvia.
But this metric reflects the overall size of an economy, not the standard of living of its people. GDP based on purchasing power parity shows how many goods and services a country produces, adjusted for price differences. And in most cases, the larger the country and its population, the higher the figure. That’s why Russia tops the ranking, while Lithuania and Latvia land near the bottom.
To assess people’s purchasing power more accurately, economists use GDP based on purchasing power parity per capita. And on that measure, Belarus ranks 37th with about $34,000 per person a year. Liechtenstein tops the list. Russia ranks 29th — ahead of Belarus. Across the European continent, only Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Ukraine and Moldova score lower.
