Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 12 – Despite Alyaksandr
Lukashenka’s statements against Russian actions in Ukraine and the support he
may be winning in the Belarusian population as a result, Moscow can seize
Belarus whenever it wants because the majority of Belarusian siloviki are quite
ready to take orders from Moscow, according to Vladimir Borodach.
Borodach, a former Belarusian security
service officer himself who now heads the anti-Lukashenka Council for National
Rebirth, says that this combination of Lukashenka’s words and the attitudes of
the Belarusian officer corps means that Belarus is “defenseless before Russia”
(belaruspartisan.org/politic/279761/).
And that situation may help to explain
but in no way will change as a result Lukashenka’s recent dismissal of
Aleksandr Konovalov as deputy state secretary of the Belarusian Security
Council or his firing of Igor Aleseychik as deputy commander of the country’s
air and air defense forces.
Lukashenka,
like Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, “adopted a firm position on Ukraine”
because the two appreciated that “the fate of Belarus and Kazakhstan hangs in
the balance and together with it the authority of Lukashenka and Nazarbayev,” Borodach
says. Both will benefit if the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict drags on.
“Putin
cannot fight on three fronts” at once, he continues. That would raise serious
questions about his leadership. Ukraine may prove too great a challenge for him
as he is “already losing the initiative and time is working against him.” Consequently
he will turn to Belarus and Kazakhstan and seek to form “a castrated union” to restore
his image as a strong leader.
Then,
Borodach says, Putin would “seek to defend Russian Cossacks in Belarus and
Russian Belarusians inKazakhstan in order to convert these stages into federal
districts or replace the heads of their governments with more pliant people. To
do so would be simpler than in Ukraine” given Lukashenka’s isolation in Europe.
That
isolation means that the Belarusian leader has to be concerned about the
support he has within his own security services and military. There, the situation from his perspective and
from that of the survival of the country is not good. “In many positions in
Belarus there are chiefs who fulfill the orders not of Lukashenka but of Putin.”
Lukashenka
has little hope of changing that anytime soon, Borodach suggests. The problem
is that any moves he makes in this sphere will be viewed not as an effort to
defend the country which might generate support but rather as an attempt to
defend his own personal power, something that will do little to win him backing
from the security services or others.
Up
to now, he continues, Lukashenka has sought to rely on what are in effect
mercenaries, people whose national self-consciousness as Belarusians is
extremely limited but who “have their own Motherland” – Russia -- that he can’t
take away from them with the kind of policies and statements he has made.
In
short, Lukashenka “has become a hostage of his own hypocritical policy between
the oprichniki and the as yet unformed nation on which he wants to base himself
in the upcoming conflict.” It simply isn’t possible to shift from one to the
other as quickly and easily as the Belarusian leader appears to believe.
What
is needed now, Borodach says, “is a complex of extraordinary measures,
including surgeons and crisis managers for the salvation of Belarus. That is
because the question standing before it is more serious: will we remain in
stagnation and isolation together with Russia or be in goodneighborly relations
with the civilized world?”
And
the Belarusian activist concludes with truly disturbing words: “In fact, what
we see now in the Donbas is easy to do in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Latvia as
well. Let us hope that made leaders are not eternal and that there will be an
international tribunal which will serve as a restraining factor.”
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