Paul Goble
Staunton,
August 15 -- Russian actions toward Belarus since 2015 show that Moscow is no
longer pursuing the “union deal” it had established with Minsk earlier and
instead has placed its bets on the forced integration of its western neighbor
into a Russian-dominated state, according to Arseny Sivitsky.
The head of the Minsk Center for Strategic
and Foreign Policy Researchsays that over the last three years, Russia has
conducted itself “in a quite aggressive and unfriendly manner toward its chief
ally … despite the fact that Belarus has not violated any of the obligations it
has assumed with regard to Moscow (thinktanks.by/publication/2018/08/15/arseniy-sivitskiy-rossiya-vyshla-iz-soyuznoy-sdelki-s-belarusyu-stavka-na-prinuditelnuyu-integratsiyu.html).
Russia’s new policy, Sivitsky says, is
directed at subordinating Belarus “to the strategic interests of Russia in the
new geopolitical context after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and then the
Russian-American confrontation” and that means “the undermining and then loss
of [Belarusian] independence and sovereignty.”
In pursuit of that goal, Moscow has been
deploying “various instruments of pressure,” economic, political and
military-security.
Many in Belarus find the Russian actions
inexplicable, and they are within the context of the former “deal” between the two
countries. But “if on the other hand, Moscow no longer considers Minsk its
ally, then the motives behind the Kremlin’s actions toward Belarus are
completely understandable.”
And that is where the situation now is. “The
Kremlin n longer views Belarus as an ally and prefers unilateral steps directed
at undermining the sovereignty and independence of our country, increasing its
influence in Belarus, limiting our interaction with the outside world, above
all with the West and China and using both formal and informal means to do so.”
In this way, Moscow has effectively
scrapped the deal Belarus and Russia concluded in the mid-1990s, a deal in
which Minsk agreed not to seek membership in the EU and NATO but rather to
integrate into the Russian military-political and economic space and Moscow
agreed to provide aid in the form of concessionary prices for energy.
None of that is true now, the security
analyst says, and it really hasn’t been true since Moscow invaded Ukraine and
annexed Crimea. He adds that in his view, Western sanctions have done nothing
to lessen the aggressive nature of Russian foreign policy which is still being
set by hardliners.
Such Russians, Sivitsky says, believe that
the West will continue to put pressure on Moscow, that no agreement with it is
possible, and that therefore “Russia has nothing to lose and must to the extent
its resources permit push its control outward where possible.” Belarus is an obvious
candidate for such an advance.
That is all the more so, Sivitsky says,
because “now the policies of Minsk and Moscow in foreign policy are diverging
in a significant way: Belarus does not want confrontation, while Russia is interested
in it just as it is interested in the immediate inclusion of Belarus in a new
confrontation process.”
He says that he expects Moscow to
step up the pressure on Minsk further in the near future, indeed as early as
next month, and adds that there is ample evidence that “the Kremlin plans to
interfere actively in the domestic political life of Belarus in 2019-2020 when
presidential and parliamentary electoral campaigns are slated to take place.”
“I do not exclude that the Kremlin
has already worked out a spectrum of scenarios, beginning with soft ones
designed to put pressure on Minsk” to change its line. “Unfortunately,”
Savitsky says, “in the near term the relations of the two countries will be
very complicated.”
“Our chief weak point is our
economic dependence on Russia,” the Minsk analyst says, and “the Kremlin uses
this.” It is virtually certain that it will do even more in the coming weeks
and months, leaving Belarus at a minimum in a very unpleasant situation.
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