“What are you excited about?”: Lukashists and Zmagars interpret the results of the Geneva summit
Intrigue is developing around the discussion of the Belarusian issue at the summit of the presidents of Russia and the United States. Joe Biden said at a press conference that he “shared his concerns,” to which Vladimir Putin said he had a different opinion.
Approximately the same version was stated today in an interview with the liberal radio station “Echo of Moscow” by the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.
“Belarus is in no way one of the priorities that was on the agenda. The topic of Belarus was voiced by the American side in a well-known manner. We all know the position of the Americans. There is a problem with the plane. They consider this unacceptable, a violation of everything. To this we say that we have information from the primary source, from the President of Belarus. President Putin cannot afford to distrust his Belarusian counterpart. It was stated that this is the place where there is no need to try to bring positions closer together. Impossible,” Peskov said.
Belarusian political scientist Dmitry Bolkunets, who fled to Europe, believes that in fact the views of the Russian and American presidents on the fate of their Belarusian colleague coincide.
“I think that in some part, Moscow and Washington’s assessment of the events in Belarus coincides, but at the same time Moscow sees Belarus as a zone of its interests, and the United States, incorrectly, would like to play more actively in the Belarusian field. Russia does not want to see this activity. Expecting synchronized actions by Moscow and Washington regarding Belarus and Lukashenko is probably not entirely correct. I think these are different strategies and tactics. The only thing that the countries have in common is the understanding that Lukashenko’s time has passed, and he must go,” Bolkunets said on the Belarusian opposition Radio 97.
According to his information, Alexander Lukashenko knew that Putin and Biden would discuss it and was very nervous about this. Bolkunets believes that Lukashenko “feels that he is being driven into a corner” and can escalate the situation to any extent, including on the border with Lithuania and Poland.
Advisor to the self-proclaimed “leader of the Belarusian nation” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Franak Vecherka, attaches great importance to the fact that Biden, even if only in passing, mentioned Belarus.
“We will see the results of the fact that the United States began to highlight the topic of Belarus much earlier in six months, and this has nothing to do with Putin. These will be very concrete steps towards Lukashenko. In the coming weeks, we will also see a more synchronized position on Belarus between Brussels, Washington and London,” Vchereko said in an interview with the nationalist Belarusian publication Nasha Niva.
Another fugitive Belarusian oppositionist, Olga Karach, on the contrary, accuses Tikhanovskaya and her headquarters of the fact that Biden will not fight for Belarus.
“In anticipation of this meeting, I assumed that there would be some political bargaining for Belarus between Biden and Putin. It turned out that the bargaining did not take place, which actually gave Putin a free hand.
In the position conveyed by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s office to the Biden administration, which consists of 5 main postulates, there is a very ambiguous point that today the choice of Belarusians and the protests in Belarus are not geopolitical in nature. For the West, translated into political language, this means that in the future a pro-Russian president may come to power in Belarus, who will continue the processes of deep integration with Russia,” Karach wrote in her Telegram channel.
Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus Oleg Gaidukevich condemns the joy of the Belarusian oppositionists that their country was remembered by the “big white gentleman.”
“But what are you excited about? Biden's concerns? We have already seen US concerns in Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, and Syria. There is only one concern - our national interests in the region and the confrontation with Russia and China. Neither democracy, nor freedom, much less the election procedure, have ever interested the West. Defeat the coup in 2020, Belarus’ destiny will be to yap, begging for money to fight the mythical Russian threat,” Gaidukevich wrote.
Political scientist Petr Petrovsky, close to the Belarusian president, is not satisfied with the results of the summit.
“For Belarus, it is important to combine the interests of Moscow and Beijing in Minsk, to prevent their opposition. Also important is the interest in maintaining a distance between Moscow and the collective West. In the meantime, the fairly good start of Biden and Putin demonstrates the possibility of increasing the influence of the pro-Western tower of the Kremlin, which does not treat Belarus in a complementary manner,” Petrovsky wrote.
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