Russia-West Balancing Act Grows Ever More Wobbly in Belarus
13, 2017
MINSK, Belarus — Western officials and the news media have for years routinely described President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus as "the last dictator of Europe." So it may have been jarring for some to hear him expressing deep support for human rights, democracy
and the rule of law in an address last month to a large group of United States and European lawmakers who came for a conference to Minsk, the country’s tidy, but utterly uniform, capital.
Mr. Lukashenko said that Look at who came out — pensioners, workers, simple people.
Pavel Usov said that The Kremlin understands well that with all his flirtations with the West, Mr. Lukashenko is still a dictator
and cannot move Belarus into another geopolitical space,
But with major Russian military exercises scheduled for next month in Belarus, opposition leaders, analysts and even the American military fear
that Mr. Lukashenko’s tightrope act may be coming to a close.
Otherwise, Minsk would have no strategic value for Europe." But, he added, "the Kremlin has the ability to break this game at any time." Since it gained independence
in 1991, Belarus has survived in large part on heavy subsidies from Moscow in what a local economist, Sergei Chaly, called an "oil for kisses" scheme.
Arsen Sivitski said that For the Kremlin, it is very important to have its own troops
here to have the ability to escalate the situation in the region at any time,
"The European vector is just a way to balance the relationship with Russia." A landlocked country squeezed by Russia, Ukraine
and three NATO states — Poland, Latvia and Lithuania — Belarus has historically served as an invasion corridor for the major powers.
