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Military Analyst: Lukashenka Can’t Say No To Moscow

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Military Analyst: Lukashenka Can’t Say No To Moscow

The “West-2017” exercise should demonstrate the whole world that the “union” of Russia and Belarus is inviolable.

Russian political analyst, head of the Center for North and East European Studies Alexandr Sytin said this in an interview for the charter97.org.

To the question on whether the Russian troops will leave the territory of Belarus after the exercise, he replied that no one could say this for sure at the moment, but noted Lukashenka seemed incapable of saying “no” to Moscow.

- In connection with the coming exercise this autumn, Belarus, Lithuania and a number of other countries voice certain alert, also at the NATO level. They say that the exercise will be conducted under the scenario of an attack on one of the countries of the alliance, although Russia does not, of course, publicly say about it. Is it worth to be afraid of this exercise from another perspective, like capturing Belarus?

- I’d rather stick to the point that Putin is a blackmailer. I would say that he has been a blackmailer to a greater extent than a conqueror, as Russia is also engaged in an activity called support of terrorism, also cyber terrorism.

There are two points in this exercise. The first is to demonstrate the whole world and a certain part of the Belarusian society that the “union between Belarus and Russia” is inviolable, that it’s a common state. And not just a common state where cars gan go in and fro without inspection, but the real force which can counterstand any NATO initiatives.

Secondly, it’s a signal for the Belarusian society that it should not even dream about not only the integration with the West, but even about the thing called multi-vector nature in Belarus, just like the Belarusian government.

The West would have to pay attention, maybe at a loss to itself at certain point, to replace Russia as a market for Belarusian goods, because as far as I know, for Belarus it is the most difficult and most basic position. In the end, they could think of how to replace Russia in the energy market. But this is the question of secondary importance.

As for the threat to NATO countries and Western countries. To be honest, I do not believe that Russia will make such attempts today when people with the Russian Army identification marks cross the border and begin direct aggression. If they did not do this in Ukraine, they are unlikely to do so with regard to the Baltic states, let alone Poland.

- What about Belarus? Are there fears that the Russian army could come there and stay?

- Yes. Frankly speaking, I have no answer what to do as I don’t clearly understand whether Lukashenka is capable of saying: let us not do this. It seems to me that he cannot say this. Clearly Moscow will talk about the bases expanding, and whether the Russian troops will leave or not - nobody is going to tell you this.

There is one more thing that worried me. Stratford published a forecast according to which the Baltic states will become the immediate goal of Russia. To date, I do not see such an algorithm and prerequisites, but it needs to be taken into account, because anything can happen. I do not think that this will be a direct invasion in the traditions of the Second World war, but some hybrid actions are quite possible.

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