Putin Wouldn’t Get a Bounce from Annexing Belarus – He Might Even Lose Support, New Poll Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 2 – Annexing Crimea gave Vladimir Putin a major boost in his standing at home, and many have assumed that his standing would rise again if he absorbed Belarus. But new poll numbers suggest that would be unlikely. Indeed, the Kremlin leader might even see his ratings fall as many Russians say they don’t want another Anschluss.

            Today, on the occasion of Day of Unity of the two Slavic republics, Izvestiya featured an article by Angelina Galanina on the findings of a new VTsIOM poll.  The numbers can’t be encouraging to those who would like to see Putin take this next step in bringing back the Soviet Union whose demise he has called “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20^th century.”.

            Only 17 percent of Russians – fewer than one in five – favor combining the two countries into one; and 48 percent say that they do not see any reason to join the two together. Worse yet, perhaps, most Russians said they’d heard about the 20year-old Union State only this year (iz.ru/862881/angelina-galanina/ostanemsia-sosediami-rossiiane-ne-stremiatsia-k-obedineniiu-s-belorussiei).

            The fact that almost three times as many Russians oppose a union state between the two as support the annexation of Belarus does not mean Putin may not try to take this step; but it does mean that he won’t be gaining new support because he does and could even lose more of what he still has.

            The Izvestiya headline thus carries a clear message to the Kremlin leader: “Let us remain neighbors: Russians aren’t striving for unification with Belarus.”  And it should also be read by those who view Crimea as a precedent for further Russian aggression and expansion to rethink their assumptions.