Details of the real meeting between Lukashenko and Putin between the lines: public humiliation – just the beginning

At first glance, this seemed like a dramatic performance in which – the clash of unequal leaders: the weakest reaches out to ask for the help of an intercessor after humiliating himself, Lukashenko himself approached. Not for the first time.

In all his posture, Putin proved that he was the master of the situation: the Russian president, who had fallen into his chair, scratched his head and face, opened his eyes to the guest, in the distance, and simply listened with indifference to the humbly bowed to Lukashenko. It was as if he had become an object of harassment, but Mr. Lukashenko seemed determined and even allowed himself to feel like a younger brother.

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– Kashin ⚓ Kashin ⚓ Kashin (@KSHN) September 14, 2020

Lukashenko appears to be well aware of the long-running rules of the game with Putin and has spoken in front of the cameras about what sounds the most to the Kremlin’s ears.

Lukashenko thanked Putin for his support after the elections and said: “You will meet a friend in a disaster.” “These events have shown that we have to cooperate with our older brother on all issues,” Lukashenko told Putin, as if, once again, he had alluded once again to the NATO exercise and the deployment of a US battalion in Lithuania. .

“We must avoid the mistakes of the Great Patriotic War. If someone outside the Western Wall wants to break, we are ready at any time. No one is allowed to sound weapons on the union border. NATO does not read with us when they want, then they carry out exercises That is why we will do the same, ”said Lukashenko, on whose command the Belarusian forces themselves began to use weapons on the Lithuanian border, apparently in response to external threats.

Such speeches by Lukashenko can be a month of intimidation tactics, diversionary maneuvers, and an attempt to attract more verbal, and perhaps other, support from the Kremlin. However, these were just blows in front of the cameras, which Lukashenko had already liked a lot in the last month, and then the door was closed and the real conversation between Lukashenko and Putin began. What was decided for him?

He openly sided with Lukashenko

It has been repeatedly emphasized over the past week that the long-awaited meeting between Lukashenko and Putin will be the first since the August 9 elections in Belarus, when, according to official data from Minsk, nothing dramatic has happened: Lukashenko has been re-elected once. more in Belarus. He has led Iron Fists since 1994.

As if there were unprecedented protests in Belarus that lasted a month, as if there were none. As if there were not a wave of violence by the security forces against peaceful protesters and many critics of the regime. Finally, the meeting of the Russian president with Lukashenko was chosen at a time when other countries were openly ignorant of what to do in the current situation: on the one hand, the West admits that the elections in Belarus were not transparent, and on the other, 2010 and 2015.

Furthermore, Lithuania was one of the few European countries that openly named Lukashenko as illegitimate president and protected his main rival in formal elections, Sviatlana Cichanouskaja. This last woman has not only become a symbol of opposition, but also feels more and more courage when traveling, speaking with Western leaders or their representatives, sharing interviews.

Such support for Lukashenko’s direct, albeit formal opponent could not escape the eyes of the Kremlin, given that S. Cichanouskaya’s husband, Siarhei, had to compete with Lukashenko in the original way, without hiding his favorable attitude towards Russia. Furthermore, the fragmented EU in Belarus is increasingly inclined to find the key to a solution in Moscow.

Russia, on the other hand, has recently been extremely cautious regarding the Belarusian elections, issuing only laconic and traditional messages from the Kremlin school of diplomacy: Do not interfere in the internal affairs of Belarus and the elections have been transparent. And the meeting between Lukashenko and Putin has become the fine line of solidarity with which Putin makes even clearer what the Kremlin supports.

“Alexander Grigoryevich is a legitimate President of the Republic of Belarus. And as for those people who do not agree with the election results, they are all citizens of fraternal Belarus, we all appreciate and love them. We want what is happening in Belarus does not happen in some kind of non-constructive processes, but in the legal field, ”said Dmitry Peskov, a longtime representative of the Russian leader, who commented succinctly on the meeting between Lukashenko and Putin.

You will still have to pay child support.

Such open and public Kremlin support for Lukashenko seemed to have dispelled any doubts and hopes of the Belarusian opposition. All the warnings and attempts of S. Cichanouskaya and the Belarusians to openly address Putin with a courteous “we appreciate and love you, citizens of fraternal Belarus.”

On the other hand, Peskov, as well as Putin himself, tried to show too emphatically for the cameras that it was just another conversation between Putin and Lukashenko, who met more than once a year, and that, as always, he dominated the topics. of “commercial and economic relations”. .

Under such boring wording is usually found the whole essence of the agreements between the two leaders, because the leaders of Russia and Blatarus, who are not famous for transparency standards, can negotiate anything: governments or parliaments will have to formalize such agreements.

And just throw in louder details of the deals in the public space. Moscow, for example, assured that “in these difficult moments, Russia will provide Belarus with 1.5 billion dollars. government credit dollars. “

“More recently, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Mishustin, paid a visit to Belarus. I know that he has had great and very serious negotiations and that they have been successful in all areas of our interaction. By the way, also in the field We agreed that Russia would provide Belarus with 1.5 billion euros at this difficult time. dollars of state credit, “Putin said.

There have been many such “difficult moments” in Belarus in recent years, from a bad financial situation to a coronavirus hit, so one can only guess how the moment, according to the Kremlin, differs from others, if the protests Lukashenko’s at least have been forcibly suppressed.

By comparison, reports of Putin’s personal credit to Belarus have been repeated for years.

“Everything is in order, all decisions have been made”, – in November 2018, the Minister of Finance of Belarus, Maxim Jermolovich, was pleased to approve another 630 million. dollar loan. In April of last year, Belarus already secured another 600 million without much fanfare. In early September this year, Lukashenko himself, as soon as the Vagner mercenary conspiracy scandal broke out, agreed to another $ 1 billion loan. dollars to refinance the old credit. And so it seems that the story goes on endlessly: since 2008, Belarus has already borrowed 8 from Russia and borrowed 7.92 billion. Dollars

Even the most optimistic could not expect that “this difficult time”, in addition to the political crisis, Belarus, which also has financial problems, will get out of that quagmire in the near future, pay the interest properly and pay its debts.

But it seems that the Kremlin does not need it, because the credits are delivered to Belarus without major interruptions. But it would be naive to expect this to be done out of a “fraternal friendship of nations.” The cost of new loans to Lukashenko, or even more to Belarus itself, may be higher than before. After all, since the meeting with Putin, the most important things were not clear, about which Minsk and the Kremlin last year did not joke and did not manage to reach an agreement: a union agreement between the two countries, issues related to the customs union.

“We have the opportunity to speak calmly, that’s what we meet for now, but first of all, of course, we have to discuss economic issues, because more than 21 percent.” (turnover) is not small, however; It has nothing to do with our work, it has to do with global coronavirus trends. However, together we will fight the coronavirus and, I am sure, we will overcome the current economic difficulties. It is no coincidence that he also mentions the loan that Russia plans to grant to Belarus in the near future. I hope this is also reflected in the (Belarusian) financial markets, “Putin emphasized in his careful words.

In front of the chambers, there is not a single specific word on the union agreement between Russia and Belarus and a closer integration of the economic and political structures of Belarus in Russia, which was due to be approved last year, only on the decline in trade and Putin’s support for Belarusian constitutional reforms.

According to experts, this is a tactic chosen by Putin: a loud and pompous failure to come to terms with the traditionally stubborn Lukashenko, but the “last European dictator” armed with protests and armed with a minor and an armed son can break the silent methods. Only the participants in the bilateral meeting know what those methods are. But there is no shortage of speculation.

“A new final stage of the state of union between Belarus and Russia begins in Sochi. Reunification is buried, formal swallowing is no longer necessary for anyone, expensive and risky to the point of not being able to ruin relations with the West. Now the interest of the Kremlin is one: you will get as many litmus papers as possible and pay a reasonable price for it. “It is not an encyclical, but the taking of the territory by mafia methods, in other words, a forced swallow of what Lukashenko did not let go of. from his mouth before, “said Russian political scientist Vladimir Pastuchov.