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“I hope that your state activities will contribute to the development of mutually beneficial relations between Russia and Belarus in all areas, deepening cooperation in the Union and developing integration processes,” he wrote in a congratulatory telegram to Alexander Lukashenko on Monday.
Of course, Putin likes autocrats. But Lukashenko has done everything he can in recent years to disobey Putin. In April 2019, he sent a Russian ambassador to Belarus because, he said, he viewed his country as a Russian province. In December, he received $ 500 million. A USD $ infrastructure loan from the China Development Bank.
In July, his regime detained 33 Russian citizens and declared them members of the Russian private military company Vagner to destabilize the country before the elections.
However Offending Putin demonstrates his dominance by referring to “mutually beneficial relations between Russia and Belarus.” Lukashenko has publicly rejected the Kremlin’s proposal for a closer union between the two Slavs.
This year, the failure of the two countries to agree on crude exports to Belarus has dealt a blow to the country’s economy, which depends on the revenue generated from refining Russian oil and selling it on the market. European.
So what exactly is Putin thinking? Lukashenko, who ruled Belarus for a quarter of a century, is seriously trapped. When he announced that he had won the election over the weekend, he raised 80 percent. votes, protests broke out in the country.
The demonstrations do not diminish, despite internet disruptions across the country. For what purposes does Putin now support Lukashenko?
Daniel Fried, a former high-ranking US diplomat currently serving on the Atlantic Council, says Putin’s favor for Lukashenko reflects the Russian leader’s serious concerns. After the democratic uprising that forced Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country in 2014, Fried said Putin would not tolerate a “second democratic uprising among the three Slavs.”
In this sense, Putin’s desire for the Belarus uprising to fail is more important than efforts to retain a former client seeking independence. If the Russians see their neighbors resisting the dictator, they may have thoughts of resisting their own.
This dynamic also challenges Western diplomacy. On the one hand, the instinctive search for sanctions against Mr. Lukashenko and his comrades is correct. Since 2015, the United States has been trying to interact with Lukashenko and has achieved modest results. For example, it has released political prisoners and seeks to attract Western investors. But such Western actions did not bear tangible fruit.
Just watch the video forcibly extracted from Sviatlan Cichanouskaya. This key figure in the Belarusian opposition participated in the presidential campaign in place of her husband, who was arrested in June and was not allowed to collect signatures.
During the summer, it became a popular alternative to Lukashenko. She was forced to flee to Lithuania this week, in part because she feared for the safety of her children.
However, it would be a mistake to completely end Western involvement in Belarus. The US Senate is expected to approve the first US ambassador to Belarus in more than a decade in the near future. Some lawmakers, like Senator Chris Murphy, argue that sending her now to Minsk would help normalize relations with an illegally democratically re-elected dictator.
However, Fried said that now, after the rigged elections, it would be helpful to have an influential human rights defender from Belarus in Minsk.
It is not clear how things will turn out, not only because of the US ambassador to Belarus, but also because of the Belarusian dictator. Regardless of the election results, Belarusians made it clear that they no longer wanted to be ruled by a “miniputin”.
The United States and its allies must make clear that they stand ready to help turn this crisis into an opportunity for a transition to democracy.
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