Trump will Stop Supporting Belarusian Democrats against Lukashenka, Moscow Expert Says

    Staunton, Feb. 27 – US President Donald Trump has broken ranks with Europe not only on Ukraine and Russia but on Belarus, Vsevolod Shimov says, and won’t be concerned about the fate of democracy or political prisoners in that country. But he will likely continue to push Minsk to separate itself from Moscow to promote US penetration of the Belarusian economy.
    The senior scholar at the Russian Center for Belarusian Research at the Moscow Institute of Europe says that it is unlikely Trump will devote much attention to that effort as long as he is focused on Ukraine (rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/20250226-izmenitsya-li-kurs-zapada-na-belorusskom-napravlenii/).
    Shimov’s words are one of the earliest and clearest reminders that Moscow experts and behind them the Russian government are increasingly focused on what Trump’s foreign policy shift is likely to mean on the former Soviet space, a critical issue that has yet to attract the corresponding level of attention in the US or Europe.
    And the Moscow specialist’s conclusion that in Belarus at least Trump will away from promoting democracy but will continue to seek economic advantage for the US there and in other post-Soviet countries likely reflects broader thinking in Moscow as well as a new reality that these countries and those in them committed to democracy are going to have to consider.