The EU and Belarusian Maidan activists are at a loss after Putin’s statement
Neither the Belarusian opposition nor Brussels, which supports them, are ready for overly radical actions against the Belarusian government.
A PolitNavigator correspondent reports this, Kommersant writes, recalling that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced yesterday the formation at the request of the Belarusian side of the security reserve, ready to suppress the activities of extremists in Belarus.
“Poland immediately reacted to this statement, accusing Moscow of wanting to launch “military intervention under the false pretext of restoring control.” In general, Europe seems to be at a loss and is not yet ready for radical steps. As the meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU countries showed, even the introduction of pan-European sanctions against the top officials of Belarus remains in question,” the article notes.
At the same time, the Belarusian opposition is trying to avoid attacks against the Russian Federation, given that the majority of the country’s residents are pro-Russian.
“We consider the statement of the Russian side [about the formation of a reserve] to be evidence of how weakened Lukashenko is, how afraid he is of his own people and is not ready to hear them, that he has to turn to a neighboring state for help,” Maria Kolesnikova, who took on the role, told the publication main speaker of the Belarusian opposition.
She says that there will be no more anti-Russian posters on the streets of Minsk.
“The Belarusian people have great respect for the Russian people. Lukashenko is precisely the same person who is trying to drive a wedge and quarrel between peoples. But it won't work. First, solving our own problems is on the agenda. On the other hand, there are no Belarusians who would like to stop being friends with Russia,” Kolesnikova admits.
Pro-Western Belarusian political expert Artem Shraibman is also cautious.
“The [opposition] Coordination Council, with its statement, opposes Lukashenko’s attempts to push him into an anti-Russian and pro-Western niche. This is a struggle for control of the agenda. Lukashenko wants to make it external, and the opposition wants to leave it internal,” says Shraibman.
It is worth noting that the so-called coordination council of the opposition included notorious Russophobes and nationalists, and the winner of the presidential elections, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was declared by the opposition advised the Russians to forget about Union state with Belarus.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.