Putin Won't Force Lukashenka to Agree to Anschluss as That Wouldn’t Serve Kremlin’s Interests, Samorukov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 10 – Despite all the leverage he supposedly has, Vladimir Putin has signally failed to extract the concessions from Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka that would allow the Kremlin leader to proclaim victory in his drive to create a new union state and thus put in place the basis for his continuation in office after 2024, Maksim Samorukov says.

            Belarusians who oppose such an Anschluss are jubilant, Putin’s opponents are pleased, and Putin’s supporters are concerned that the outcome they expected in Sochi did not occur (svoboda.org/a/30314449.html). But Moscow Carnegie Center scholar argues no one should have been entirely surprised (carnegie.ru/commentary/80528).

            That is because, Samorukov argues, “the strength of Lukashenka’s position is based not on his personal connections with Russian leaders but on the geopolitical ambitions of Russia.” (emphasis supplied) As long as Moscow hopes to attract other former Soviet republics, it needs Lukashenka as “an example of those goods which union with Russia gives.”

            And in fact, he continues, while there has been a strengthening of Russian control over Belarus via Moscow’s use of energy resources, this development has “moved so slowly that it is clearly lagging behind the tempos of Belarusian emancipation from Russia,” something that is not always recognized or acknowledged.

            In the latest of what seem to be countless meetings between Lukashenka and Russian leaders, the two sides agreed on just two road maps toward a union state. “It might seem that the master of maneuver, Lukashenka, again outplayed everyone and turned aside Russian demands for real integration with the help of delays and empty promises.”

            But in fact, Putin isn’t prepared to push Lukashenka to the point of the latter’s losing control of the situation, even though it sometimes seems that Putin is leaving Lukashenka with ever less room for maneuver with each passing crisis between the two, a development that seems to occur ever two to three years.

            While Moscow has secured Gazprom’s complete control of pipelines through Belarus to Europe, this move hasn’t cost Belarus its sovereignty.  While it has gotten Minsk to join the Eurasian Economic Community, that institution is less than meets the eye. And “the remaining results of the many years of Russian pressure are still more meaningless.”

            That Minsk doesn’t have an accord with the EU is not a triumph for Russia, but a reflection of Lukashenka’s unwillingness to modify his regime even in a decorative way to suit the Europeans, Samorukov says.  That Minsk owes Russia so much matters less than it might because Moscow would send more money if the Belarusian regime were in real trouble.

            Meanwhile, as Russian influence has been expanding so slowly, Belarus has moved quickly to emancipate itself from Moscow.  Its economy now sports a large private sector that is ever less connected with and dependent on Russia.  And whatever officials say, “today, the economy of Belarus is hardly what it was at the dawn of integration with Russia in the 1990s.”

            Similar trends have been taking place in Belarusian exports, with ever more of them going other than to Russia, “especially in the IT sector.” And Belarusian society has been changing psychologically however much Lukashenka might like to prevent that from taking place.

            “Today the median age is about 40,” Samorukov says; “and this means that more than half of today’s Belarusians already don’t remember how they lived in one country with Russia and an independent Belarus is taken for granted.” Polls show this: Twenty years ago, almost a third of Belarusians weren’t opposed to uniting with Russia. Now only 10 percent aren’t.”

            Belarusians no longer believe that they must choose between two radical options: between pro-Russian nostalgia for the USSR and “pro-Western ethnic nationalism.”  Now, “there is a third moderate variant – civic nationalism with the defense of their own statehood but without the total transition to the Belarusian language and denial of everything Russian.”

            Consequently and obviously, Samorukov continues, “time is working against the strengthening of Russian control,” and “it is difficult to imagine” that the Kremlin doesn’t understand this. What defines the situation is that the Kremlin views Belarus as “secondary” to its larger goals of attracting other former Soviet republics to its side.

            “The Kremlin has never believed in the strength of civil society,” the analyst says. Therefore, it focuses on leaders not societies. And it believes that all post-Soviet leaders would like to remain in power for as long as Lukashenka has rather than risk being defeated in the next elections as Ukrainian presidents routinely are.

            The Kremlin will thus not push Lukashenka too far and will continue to come to his aid if things get rough, even as it does continue to try to strengthen its hand in Belarus.  That was the case in the crisis years of 2011, 2014, and 2017, Samorukov says; and it will continue after 2024 whether Putin is in power or not.