Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 25 – For Vladimir
Putin, Belarus is “the key to the Baltic countries” as a military-strategic
outpost and thus quite possibly Minsk will turn out to be “much more important
for the Russian system than Ukraine is, according to Liliya Shevtsova, a
Russian commentator now at the Brookings Institution.
In an interview to
Belaruspartisan.org, she points out that Putin “does not have any sympathy for
Aleksandr Lukashenka,” because the Belarusian leader’s independent poses
constantly force Moscow to give him more help. The Eurasian Union in reality provides
help to Lukashenka and Moscow and Kazakhstan only “lose” (belaruspartisan.org/politic/296545/).
But Putin and those around him feel
they have no choice but to do so because of the importance of Belarus as a
transit route to the West – one far more important than Ukraine – and as a
place from which it can put pressure on the Baltic countries. Without Minsk in
its corner, Moscow would find that very difficult to do.
Shevtsova adds that what Moscow is
doing in Ukraine now is an effort to intimidate Belarus and keep it in line by
reminding Lukashenka that the same thing could happen to him if he is not
careful. But at the same time, she says, “Russia and the Kremlin are completely
uninterested in territorial acquisitions.”
Moscow does not want to assume the
burdens that would be involved in the absorption of new territories within its
own borders, she suggests. It simply wants to show that it can take such
actions and then force those against whom such actions are directed to pay the
bill – or to get others in the West to do so.
Crimea is the exception which proved the rule. From Moscow’s point of
view, Crimea “always was Soviet Russian.” Its annexation simply codified what
those in the Russian capital believed was in fact already the case. But even its absorption has proved to be
extremely expensive. Moscow doesn’t need or want more such burdens, Shevtsova
says.
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