Political Analyst: Lukashenka Run Out Of Options

They will press the dictator in.

Theoretically, official Minsk may abandon the “union state” with Russia.

“However, frankly speaking, the simple truth is that the current Belarusian leadership will never take such a bold step”, political analyst Aliaksandr Klaskouski writes in an article for belsat.eu.

According to the political scientist, Lukashenka “does not look like a kamikaze”:

“The Belarusian ruler, whose sense for threats is acute, immediately tried the Crimean scenario of 2014 on the territory subject to him. After all, the Kremlin rebuilt the Crimea because it was frightened of the American destroyers in Sevastopol. Phobias worked that Ukraine, after the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, will go straight to NATO and the damned adversaries will get even closer.

For Moscow, Belarus is primarily a strategic bridgehead, a balcony hanging over the European theater of operations (so far hypothetical). They let the whimsical Belarusian dictator to express discontent, but the Kremlin will not tolerate breaking the integration ties, rejection of allied obligations (especially in the military-political sphere).

The Kremlin monitors the loyalty of its ally, and “economic integration” is just as dangerous for the sovereignty of Belarus as direct incorporation.

“Firstly, the Belarusian economy is weak and tightly glued to the Russian one. Further rapprochement is fraught with banal absorption.

Secondly, Moscow continues to put pressure by the rejection of previous economic preferences (oil, gas, loans, etc.)

Moreover, in Russia they began to meticulously monitor the signs of the Belarusian “betrayal”: look, they indulge the “local Bandera people,” flirt with the Americans, who often visit Minsk, and here’s horror-horror-horror - they are ready to give away our citizen to the damned overseas adversaries”, the political scientist believes.

The last phrase is an allusion to the scandal with the Russian woman Anna Bogacheva.

“In the latter case, I mean the scandal with the detention in Belarus at the request of Interpol of the Russian woman Anna Bogacheva, who is associated with the “troll factory” of Yevgeny Prigozhin, and whom the Americans accuse of interfering in their elections.

The fear of the Belarusian authorities, which were so unwittingly framed by an unknown service officer, who checked Bogacheva in the database, appeared so great that the authorities began to clumsily deny even the very fact of detention.

Moreover, today Lukashenka personally made excuses for this incident at a meeting with the governor of the Novgorod region Andrei Nikitin”, the political scientist writes.

But Lukashenka himself is to blame for the situation:

“Lukashenka himself was a fiery integrator in the 90s, he hastened Moscow in this regard, was in a hurry to forge this very “union state”. Another thing is that then there were possibilities related to the Kremlin, and now it’s about survival, to remain with what he had.

But to refuse the “union treaty” for which he himself advocated is inconceivable for the Belarusian ruler, also because it would mean recognizing the impasse and depravity of his many years of policy of “fraternal integration”, the political scientist writes.

Moscow will increasingly blackmail the unlucky Belarusian dictator:

“Real blackmail is when the threat is stronger than execution. As for the Belarusian partner, Moscow has long understood: he has run out of options! Lukashenka himself admits that in Europe he (although he usually says “us”) is not particularly expected. There’s no surprise - with the Soviet economy and the semi-feudal regime of absolute power.

And therefore the Kremlin will press him in”, Aliaksandr Klaskouski is convinced.