Andrei Sannikov: ‘War Party’ Won In Kremlin

Russia is in fact using Belarus as a staging ground, threatening Europe.

Leader of the European Belarus civil campaign, former candidate for the President of Belarus Andrei Sannikov has expressed such an opinion in an interview with Crimea.Realii.

“Sad, but true - Western politicians often show impressive naivety when it comes to security issues related to Belarus. Aliaksandr Lukashenka presents himself as some sort of as “donor of security”, but at the same time he participates in all of Moscow’s military preparations in the Western direction. In the first place, this refers to the joint military drills “West”, the biggest military maneuvers since the time of the USSR collapse, the latest of them took place in 2017.

Apart from the above, joint staff exercises and paratrooper drills of Belarus and Russia are constantly held, including near Ukraine’s borders. Herein, according to the scenarios, it’s not only NATO that could act as an object of the drills, but also Ukraine. Besides, we are witnessing NATO’s reaction to such moves of Minsk and Moscow - this is the reinforcement of the Alliance forces’ presence in the Baltic States, as well as the plans relating to the deployment of the NATO base in Poland. This proves that, at least among the NATO strategists, Belarus is perceived as a part of the Russian military machine,” the Belarusian politician notes.

Herein, Andrei Sannikov believes that the refusal of Aliaksandr Lukashenka to set up a Russian air forces base in Belarus should not mislead Europe.

“The Russian military men feel quite comfortable in the territory of Belarus, and the formal presence of the air forces base would not change anything essentially, but may complicate the process of getting money in the West for Lukashenka. We have information that Russia absolutely easily uses Belarusian military bases, airports, military units, for their purposes. We don’t know how many (Russian - Crimea.Realii) specialists stayed in Belarus after the joint military exercises “West-2017”. That is, the closeness of the military cooperation between Moscow and Minsk is such that Russia is actually using the territory of Belarus as its military base. However, these processes have been slowed down a bit recently, as, apparently, Lukashenka realized that he created a very dangerous situation for himself,” the leader of the European Belarus says.

As for the possible scenario of the Anschluss of Belarus by Russia, Andrei Sannikov thinks that this option cannot be ruled out.

“One of the options here could be the “Crimean scenario”, when the fake legitimacy of the take-over process is created through a pseudo-referendum. Of course, Lukashenka is not happy with this option, but the fact is that he himself once threw this boomerang. Even under Yeltsin, he really wanted to become the head of the “union state”, and therefore he was interested in creating it, although in fact no “union state” really existed. Moreover, Lukashenka himself actually recognized the annexation of the Crimea, despite all the political games and his crafty formulations in this regard. After all, the Belarusian delegation in the UN keeps on voting against all resolutions condemning the annexation,” Andrei Sannikov said.

At the moment, the Belarusian opposition politician does not consider the option of Belarus’s takeover to be very likely, given the costs that Moscow will have to pay in such a case.

“Putin did not receive big dividends from the Crimea and Donbas, but got himself a lot of problems because of them. Now Putin is trying to get free of sanctions with the help of his lobbyists in the West, and he seems unlikely, exclusively for mercantile reasons, to decide to further complicate relations with the Western world. It seems obvious to me that the Kremlin has a desire to completely control Belarus, or even completely deprive it of independence, but there is no ready-made option on how to do this. Moreover, such a scenario will provoke severe resistance from Belarusians, possibly armed resistance. Many Belarusian volunteers are fighting in the Donbas on the side of Ukraine, and I think they can use their experience against the Russian aggression in Belarus along with their Ukrainian brothers-in-arms.

Yes, the ideas of the “Russian world” are actively promoted in the country by the pro-Kremlin resources, and they are trying to actively involve Belarusian youth in militarized camps, for example, in the occupied Crimea. However, these ideas are not presented in the form of some formalized political force and remain unpopular in Belarus,” said Sannikov.

On the other hand, Andrei Sannikov emphasizes that for all the seeming disadvantage of the Anschluss of Belarus for Vladimir Putin, this option cannot be disregarded.

“More and more analysts say that the “war party” won in the Kremlin, which is seriously considering the possibility of military aggression against the Baltic countries. Putin today openly announces a new arms race under the pretext of the need for a US confrontation, and this race has already led to disasters in Russia, for example, in Severodvinsk. Now Russia is pumping weapons in two directions: the militarization of the occupied Crimea, and in the European direction - Kaliningrad and Belarus. Recently, S-400 missile systems and modern Su-30SM fighters were delivered to Belarus. A blow can be expected in any of these areas. Russian generals’ nostrils are swollen with the smell of blood that they shed in Ukraine and Georgia, and they certainly continue to develop the plans for further aggression, therefore we simply must consider the worst option. Today it is strange to hear from some Western politicians that further aggression by Russia is unlikely. Russia's military operations in other countries is a fact, not an assumption.

Putin does not need a united Europe, therefore Russia, on the one hand, is pumping money from separatist and extremist groups and parties in European countries, and on the other hand, is turning Belarus into a military staging ground that threatens Europe. Kaliningrad and Belarus are actually the pincers, with which you can bite off a piece of the Baltic countries from Europe, and threaten Poland. And it is very disturbing that Western politicians do not understand this threat. The fact is that military confrontation alone cannot solve this problem. Western countries should primarily support democratic forces in Russia, Belarus and other post-Soviet countries,” the opposition politician believes.

As another consequence of the “creeping occupation” of Belarus by Russia, Andrei Sannikov calls the provision of the territory of Belarus for the construction of a Russian nuclear power plant, which could lead to a new large-scale nuclear disaster.

“The construction of the nuclear power plant is being carried out by Rosatom, typically by Soviet methods. The essence of this method is that the money intended to ensure the safety of the station is simply stolen. At the same time, neither in Russia nor in Belarus there is freedom of the press, which could provide control over the construction and its compliance with standards and norms. Meanwhile, on the territory of Russia, an emergency shutdown of reactors of the type intended for Belarus was already taking place: both at the Kalinin and Beloyarsk NPPs. Emergencies with the not yet installed reactor were recorded on the territory of Belarus. According to the information that leaked into the press, it was damaged during transportation, and it remains unknown whether any repair, or replacement of the reactor, happened after this. It is known that there were accidents with human casualties at the construction site, that are also kept secret from the public, and the facts of hiding information provoke the most fears,” says Sannikov.

Moreover, according to Andrei Sannikov, the Belarusian authorities are not doing anything in order to strengthen the country's independence from Moscow, even if only in terms of information.

“The opinion that Lukashenka gives great freedom to the Belarusian language is only an illusion. In fact, the Belarusian language is discriminated against; there is not a single university in the country educating in Belarusian. Moreover, at the sound of Belarusian speech, the police in the streets “make a point”: for them it is an indicator of unreliability and a possible reason for detention.

The Belarusian army is also unlikely to defend the country's independence, since it is not brought up in a patriotic spirit. It will not defend Lukashenka either: because of the dominant role of Russian television, Putin is now more popular in Belarus than Lukashenka. One gets an impression that the latter generally has poor control over the situation in the country. Appearing on television, he does not follow the political agenda, makes some odd statements. In addition, the Belarusian military know that the monetary allowance in the Russian army is significantly higher than in the Belarusian armed forces.

The best support for independence would be to stop pressure on the opposition, hold real elections and allow patriotic forces to defend Belarus. Even the current regime has such an opportunity in the upcoming election year,” Sannikov said.

Interview recorded by Ksenia Kirylova