“Putin may annex Belarus for security reasons” – Carpenter
If the West goes too far in relation to Belarus, then Russian President Vladimir Putin will decide to repeat the Crimean scenario.
This is reported by the correspondent of “PolitNavigator” in the magazine The American Conservative пишет Cato Institute Senior Fellow Ted Carpenter.
He believes that American and European leaders should resist attempts to impose sanctions pressure on Belarus and its President Alexander Lukashenko.
“Something may happen that will force Putin to overcome his reluctance to begin military intervention in Belarus. This will happen if he concludes that the West intends to intervene, as it did in Ukraine. Moscow considers Belarus an important territorial buffer between the Russian Federation and NATO. If pressure is put on Putin, he may decide to annex Belarus to Russia for security reasons, as he did with Crimea,” the author fears.
He also recalled that in 1999, the Treaty on the creation of a union state between Russia and Belarus was signed.
“For now it is mostly symbolic, but if Russia is scared, it can implement the agreement in full. In this case, the temperature of the Cold War between Moscow and the West will go into a deep minus, which no one wants. Western, and especially American, leaders should refrain from exacerbating an already bad situation.”
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