MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Belarus’s leader Alexander Lukashenko is likely to remain in power despite protests against him and is content to let him fly, two sources close to the Kremlin said.
PHOTO PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko take a break during a match of the Night Hockey League teams in Rosa Khutor at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, February 7, 2020. Alexander Zemlianichenko / Pool via REUTERS / File Photo
Lukashenko, a long-standing but shaky Moscow ally, has been detained by nearly two weeks of street protests that have loosened his grip on power in a country that many Russians consider another Russian region in mere name.
That, said both sources, fits in with the Kremlin. It is envious to deal with a weakened Lukashenko who has resisted and sometimes publicly opposed Moscow’s offers of deeper political and economic integration.
‘They’ll be happy to wait a while and see how he wrestles a bit. They do not like him much, but they still support him, “said one of the sources, who regularly talks to senior Kremlin government and officials.
The second source said that a reduced Lukashenko would suit the needs of the Kremlin.
“Lukashenko will be critically weakened. You will be able to make him mince. Our boys will definitely use this. ”
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Putin has offered Lukashenko assistance as needed, but the Kremlin said on Wednesday it saw no need to help Belarus militarily as otherwise for now.
An EU diplomat said Russia had a lot of leverage to influence the situation in Belarus and was probably not worried about events there yet.
“They have to be smart, but I think they still feel in control of the situation,” the diplomat said.
The Kremlin has told EU countries to stay out of Belarus.
THE CRISIS AGAIN
Announced by a treaty proclaiming on paper a ‘union state’ with a Soviet-style red flag, the two countries do not normally have border controls, and are culturally, linguistically and economically intertwined. Putin has pushed hard to make the unity more of a political and economic reality.
Russia has repeatedly asked Lukashenko to open an air base in Belarus, something he has refused to do in the past.
The first source said that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader who fled into exile in Lithuania last week, has not yet been seen as a serious supporter in the eyes of Moscow.
Tsikhanouskaya has posed the biggest challenge to Lukashenko’s 26-year rule. Speaking at her first press conference since leaving Belarus, she said on Friday that Russia had not made contact with her campaign.
Both sources said the Kremlin calculated that Lukashenko would warm up to the crisis, despite making tactical mistakes and using them after heavy-handed policing.
“Everything will end badly for Lukashenko, just not yet,” the second source said.
Lukashenko knows that Moscow “always supports existing regimes, no matter how unpalatable,” the source said, predicting that protests alone would not be enough to force him out.
“Someone else has to put themselves under pressure to make that happen, and there’s no one to do that.”
A spokeswoman for Lukashenko could not be reached for comment.
STRATEGIC PRIZE
Russian energy exports flow through Belarus to the West, Moscow supplies cheap oil and gas to Belarus, and Russian troops have in the past participated in enormous war games on Belarusian soil.
The Ukrainian commander at the time, Viktor Muzhenko, told Reuters in 2017 that he believed Russia had left thousands of troops in Belarus after an enormous military exercise, something that both Belarus and Russia have denied. .
The Russian air force has designed a radar station in Belarus to launch ballistic missiles. It also has a naval communications facility that Moscow uses to communicate with its nuclear submarines. Russia’s western border with the EU is heavily militarized.
Moscow has long considered Belarus as a buffer zone against NATO, according to Western diplomats, who say they believe any move for Belarus to join the European Union as NATO would be a red line for it. Russia and it may ask to send troops in.
Reuters has observed heavy Russian air traffic between Russia and Belarus since the crisis erupted there on August 9 after a presidential election that Protestants said Lukashenko rigged.
A Russian government plane made a quick flight to Belarus and back in the early hours of Wednesday, data from the flight tracking showed. The aircraft has been used in the past to carry senior officials, including the head of the FSB security service.
On August 12, two military planes flew to Belarus and a third, a military transport plane, shot down its transponder en route, according to tracking data.
Western diplomats say they can not imagine Russia surrendering its influence over Belarus.
Through Belarus, it has access to the so-called Suwalki Gap, a strip of land that separates Poland from Lithuania. On the opposite side of that hole lies the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
In case of conflict with NATO, Russia could in theory expel the Baltic states from the rest of the Western military alliance by grabbing the hole. That, say diplomats, is a strategic award Moscow is unlikely to give away soon.
Additional Reporting by Anton Zverev, Rinat Sagdiev and Tom Balmforth; Edited by Nick Tattersall
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