Putin has 10 Compelling Reasons to Refrain from Sending Troops into Belarus, Shraibman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 14 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka may ask Vladimir Putin to intervene with military force to save the Minsk dictatorship, but there are ten compelling reasons why the Kremlin leader won’t do so, according to Belarusian political commentator Artyom Shraibman (t.me/shraibman/271).

            These don’t mean that Putin won’t use “hybrid” means to support his weakened partner, but both individually and collectively, they suggest that the Russian leader will refrain from the mass invasion that some Belarusians and others have been talking about.  The 10 reasons are the following:

1.      “Russia will not save a collapsing regime with force. It could pull out its leader but it has no hope of saving a regime which lacks any remaining basis of support.”

2.      “Belarusians do not want foreign intervention and do not want to be part of Russia.”

3.      Any occupation would require “tens of thousands” of soldiers and would be resisted by the Belarusian people. There would be “thousands of victims” on both sides.

4.      Such an intervention would drive Belarusians even further away from Moscow than the invasion of Ukraine has.

5.      Any massive use of military force would lead the West to impose far more draconian sanctions than any it has so far.

6.      It would achieve nothing. Belarus isn’t about to leave the Eurasian Economic Union and join the EU. It is too indebted to Moscow for that.

7.      “An invasion would not resolve the problem of internal stability. Workers would not return to their factories, the banking system would collapse, and someone would have to invest billions in humanitarian assistance. Moscow lacks the funds for that.

8.      Belarusians today are not marching under anti-Russian slogans. Moscow will accept almost any government in a neighboring country that doesn’t break with it, and no Belarusian government is going to.

9.      In his message to Lukashenka, Putin has already signaled that he won’t send in troops. His words spoke about “friendship of the peoples but did not contain a single reference about supporting the current Belarusian president.” Moscow has thus adopted “a wait and see” approach.

10.   The Moscow-led Organization for the Collective Security Treaty has no provision for the use of military force by one country on the territory of another except if aggression from the outside is taking place.  Russian and Belarusian outlets may talk about this, but they aren’t credible.