Wiener Zeitung: It’s Getting More And More Noticeable That Lukashenka Is Nervous

The Austrian media outlet questions the stability of the dictatorial regime in Belarus.

Does the Belarusian ruler have everything under control? This is a question, believes reporter of the Austrian media outlet Wiener Zeitung Gerhard Lechner.

“Lukashenka, who in the past was a leader of a collective farm, studied politics not at the party meetings, but in the bath-house in his native village, - the journalist claims. - He seems pleased to reprimand his ministers and other subordinates in public and in the spotlight, just like his colleague Vladimir Putin, in order to demonstrate his “authority”.

Lately, it has been more and more noticeable that he is nervous, - Lechner notes. - Thus, the 64-year-old dictator said recently: if the economic situation in Belarus does not improve, it may lose its independence and “we will have to either go join some other state, or they will wipe their feet against us.”

“It’s not hard to guess which state Lukashenka is afraid of – Russia. The climate between Minsk and Moscow has been significantly deteriorating for many years. Herein, Belarus remains Russia’s closest ally, and Lukashenka can be called anything but a Russia-hater,” - the journalist comments.

During Putin’s reign the relations between Minsk and Moscow worsened in the field of trade in the first place. Thus, Kremlin accused the Belarusian neighbor of bypassing the Russian sanctions against the EU. Russia banned import of certain food products from Belarus, and the border control was re-established between the two countries. For the last 18 years, there have been serious discrepancies with regard to gas prices, stated in the article.

However, most of all Lukashenka got frightened in 2014, after the Euromaidan in Ukraine, the annexation of the Crimea and the subsequent war in the Donbas. “He sees threats for himself coming from both East and West: he is afraid of the Western policy in the sphere of human rights and the possible change of the regime, and he is also afraid of the Russian claims which could undermine his power in Belarus,” - Lechner clarifies.