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Talks last week between Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (his actual role is the Kremlin envoy) and Aliaksandr Lukashenko, the President of Belarus (who should be replaced by a “usurper”) announce the resumption of talks on ties. economic and political narrower. Russia would save the Minsk regime financially and politically in exchange for slavery. More details may become clear after Lukashenko’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on September 14.
From a tactical point of view, this may seem logical to the Kremlin. Give something to get something. A larger military footprint in Belarus, a breath of geopolitical fame, and (no doubt) an opportunity for the Kremlin’s friends to rake in lucrative wealth could redeem the difficulties and sensitive issues of dealing with pro-democracy protests.
But strategically, this position is horrible. So far, anti-Russian or anti-Kremlin sentiment has not been seen in the protests in Belarus. Nobody complains about the imposition of Soviet power on the Democratic Republic of Belarus in 1919. Nobody demands accountability for the crimes committed by the Kremlin on Belarusian territory in recent decades. No one complains about Russification in Khrushchev’s time. Nobody waves the flags of the European Union or NATO and asks the country to make a decisive turn in the geopolitical direction towards the West. The protests focus on simple and urgent demands: free elections, the release of political prisoners and an end to police brutality.
From a tactical point of view, this may seem logical to the Kremlin. Give something to get something.
Russia should be happy about that. Let the Lukashenko regime pay for its arbitrariness. A democratic uprising in Belarus may be a shame, but a twisted and powerful Russia may face negative consequences, as did when the authoritarian kleptocratic regime in Armenia collapsed in 2018. But by supporting the regime in exchange for what will be seen as a crippling weakening and humiliating of the sovereignty of Belarus, the Kremlin will create exactly the problem it wants most to avoid: an anti-Russian (or at least anti-colonial) sentiment in one of its remaining allies.
This error is not new. This is exactly what the Russian Federation has been doing since 1991. It is now difficult to recall the attachment and respect that Democrats felt for each other throughout the former Soviet Union in the weeks and months before and immediately after its collapse. I remember witnessing large demonstrations in Moscow to support the Baltic countries that were still fighting against the Soviet occupation. He was sitting in meetings where Moscow and Leningrad city officials discussed with the leaders of the then “Soviet republics” how to get the economy out of the Kremlin’s hands. The motto “For your freedom and ours” had real power and meaning.
A democratic uprising in Belarus may be a shame, but a twisted and powerful Russia may face negative consequences, as it did when the authoritarian kleptocratic regime in Armenia collapsed in 2018.
Everything changed when it became clear that Russia had not really changed. He was in no rush to withdraw his occupying forces. He interfered in the affairs of his formerly enslaved nations with money, propaganda, and destructive activities. NATO membership, once considered impractical, has suddenly become a moral and strategic necessity. The wars in Sakartvele and Ukraine turned these countries into Russian enemies. Even non-NATO Sweden and Finland have finally realized that the Russian threat is real. Now even Romanians are learning the same lesson that Imperial Russia has no friends or allies, only subjects. The Russians may mourn the loss of “brotherly Belarus”, but they only blame themselves for it.
Edward Lucas is Vice President of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
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