Anatol Kotau About Regime’s Provocations: Response With Military Means Will Follow

The “gun” that is hanging on the wall on the border will fire.

Latvia has mobilized additional forces to strengthen the Belarusian border. The country's Prime Minister said that this was a “preemptive action” and “there will be no jokes”.

What other tools to counter Lukashenka's provocations can Riga and neighboring countries of Belarus use? The Charter97.org website talked about this with Belarusian political scientist Anatol Kotau:

— Completely close the border for goods traffic. I doubt that any strengthening of the military component of the border will be perceived in Minsk or in the Kremlin as a serious signal. The only thing that this will demonstrate is that no one will fool around with any sort of provocations, illegal migrants or sabotage groups. But this is a defense against petty provocations, nothing more. Neither Moscow nor Minsk will take this seriously.

— Military analyst Yuri Fedorov writes in his article that the Suwałki corridor and tensions at the borders can be a distraction, and the “Wagnerites” could be prepared for an “excursion to Rzeszów” to undermine the logistics of supplying Western equipment to Ukraine. How realistic is this scenario?

— Any scenario is realistic, in theory this one is also no exception, but for this it is necessary to ensure the penetration of a sufficiently large number of Wagner PMCs into Poland. Perhaps this can be done using some false documents, or under the guise of illegal migrants. I don't think the Suwałki Corridor is of any significance here as a distraction. If there is such a goal, then the Suwałki Corridor and any actions there are absolutely not needed in order to provide a cover operation.

— The head of the Chinese Ministry of Defense arrived in Belarus. Not so long ago, Poland announced that it was ready to close rail transit, and China should make it clear to Lukashenka that provocations must stop. Can Beijing rein in its Minsk vassal?

— In theory, it can. In 2021, the same configuration worked when there were massive assaults on the border, and the refugee camps in the border strip were liquidated, because the same signal was sent — for security reasons, it is quite possible that the border will have to be closed, protection against illegal migration is underway. It worked in 2021.

China is now in a somewhat better position, because in two years it has managed to seriously diversify the logistics of delivering goods to Europe and back. Russia and Belarus are not key routes, they can be completely excluded from these chains, which would still be undesirable, but possible.

Let's see if it will rein Minsk in, there is such a chance, we will see if this mechanism works. More than a week has passed since Poland publicly announced that they had sent such a signal to Beijing. So, the clock is ticking, it's time Minsk makes decisions.

— Let's outline several possible scenarios. How can events develop on the borders of the EU and Belarus?

– I don’t know how many basic scenarios can be named, but in general there are two of them with slight variations. Either the Belarusian regime stops provocations at the border and actually fulfills the conditions of Poland's ultimatum: the withdrawal of Wagner from Belarus, the cessation of migratory attacks and the release of political prisoners. Then, perhaps, some kind of normalization will begin not only at the border, but also in general relations, because it will be realpolitik.

If Lukashenka remains in the situation in which he is most likely to be (not independent in making any decisions, even with regard to what is happening on the territory of Belarus and its external borders), then provocations will continue, and sooner or later the gun that is hanging on the wall on the border will fire. Probably, the incident with the flight of Belarusian military helicopters into Poland was the last one that will remain unanswered by military means, which will entail absolutely unpredictable consequences, up to an armed conflict.