Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 12 – The decline in
Vladimir Putin’s popularity in Russia in recent years with the collapse of the
so-called “Crimean consensus” has been much documented and commented upon, but
his standing in Belarus, which has been declining more or less continuously
since 2002, has not.
However, polls by Minsk’s
Independent Institute for Social, Economic and Political Research and the
Belarusian Analytic Center find that the peak of Putin’s standing among
Belarusians as a leader of the Union involving their country and Belarus
occurred only two years into his rule (svaboda.org/a/30101803.html; in Russian, belaruspartisan.by/politic/472892/).
Since that time, the two research
institutions say, as a result of various crises in the relationship between
Minsk and Moscow, Putin’s standing as a possible leader of the two countries
functioning as one has fallen consistently, even as Aleksandr Lukashenka’s
standing with his own population has generally risen.
Putin remains respected among
Belarusians, the polls find, but only as the leader of a neighboring country
and not as a potential leader of the Union state. Consequently, the object of
one of Putin’s much cherished policies 20 years into his reign doesn’t see him
as he would like to be seen.
Whether as a result of these polls or
merely a coincidence, Moscow has insisted and Minsk has agreed this week to
allow a new group of Russian television channels to be distributed via cable in
Belarus and thereby promote all things Russian among a population that is ever enamored
of Putin (charter97.org/ru/news/2019/8/10/344335/).
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