"Lukashenka's Intuition Says He Plays the Role of Milosevic"

The political leadership of Belarus is in a state of frustration.

The meeting of presidents Putin and Biden did not change the position of the USA concerning the situation in Belarus. They will impose sanctions anyway. Nor has Moscow's position changed. Experts do not see any positive scenario for Aliaksandr Lukashenka, says Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

On Thursday, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland announced that Washington DC was preparing new sanctions for Belarus. According to her, they will be imposed next week. It is not yet known what exactly they involve. "Belarus is one of the topics discussed in the context of yesterday's summit. President Biden clarified that it was one of the issues where we strongly disagree with Russia. I do not think that any of the two presidents challenge the fact that we have opposite views on the situation in Belarus," the media quotes her. She recalls that the U.S. sees a way out of the Belarusian political crisis in holding new transparent and fair elections. The U.S. and the EU intend to pursue a single sanctions policy to put pressure on Lukashenka's regime and force him to negotiate. The U.S. considers the situation with the Ryanair aircraft landing in Minsk and "dragging a dissident out of it and showing it off" lawless and outrageous. "Like Europe, we've already imposed some sanctions. I think you're going to see more of them next week," Victoria Nuland promised.

On the eve of the meeting in Geneva, the U.S. said that the situation in Belarus would also be the subject of talks between Putin and Biden. Some local experts assumed that Belarus could be part of a larger geopolitical deal.

"I shared our concerns about Belarus. He didn't argue with what happened. He just said he had a different opinion regarding things to do," Joseph Biden explained. "Yes, the positions of the countries on how to solve the Belarusian issue are so different that it is impossible to bring them together", stressed spokesman of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov in his commentary on Thursday. However, neither Russia nor the United States denies the problem.

All in all, the situation for Lukashenka is becoming more and more troublesome, says political scientist Valery Karbalevich. "Lukashenka's intuition says he plays the role of Milosevic," he writes. In his opinion, Belarus crossed a red line after the forcible landing of the aircraft. It happened "not only in relationships of the official Minsk with the West but in the Belarusian political life in general". The expert predicts that further sanctions will be tough, although even now, after the imposition of aviation sanctions, a "black hole" is being formed in the center of Europe. At the same time, the expert considers the actions of Minsk to fix the situation are clumsy and self-destructive. The political leadership is in a state of frustration, says Karbalevich.