Trading in Belarus has begun
Many people were waiting for the results of yesterday's Geneva summit in Belarus. Expectations were different. Official propaganda said that Putin would not leave Lukashenko in trouble and would definitely defend his Belarusian colleague in negotiations like a lion. The opposition either feared that the negotiations would fail and a new round of confrontation would begin with the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO, or they predicted that Putin would surrender Lukashenko and Belarus in exchange for some kind of reciprocal concessions or simply the lifting of sanctions. But the predictions did not come true for either the first or the second.
Both the authorities and the opposition in Belarus overestimate the international significance of their republic. Moreover, both sides for some reason believe that key world players are ready to defend their interests to the detriment of their own. In reality, everything was not like that. Belarusian supporters of Lukashenko never heard any words of support for their leader from Putin during the final press conference. He didn’t say a word about Belarus at all, and none of the journalists who asked questions asked about it. Biden, in turn, uttered only one phrase, and it was clearly not one that could please Lukashenko.
“And I shared my concerns about Belarus. He didn’t agree with me about what happened, but said that he saw differently what to do about it now,” Biden said about Putin’s reaction to his position on the Belarusian problem.
That is, there is no denial of the problem itself, but there is a vision of how to solve it. Later, however, Peskov poured balm on the wound, saying that at the meeting between Putin and Biden it was stated that it was impossible to bring closer positions on Belarus.
Actually, it's not that impossible. Belarus was not a priority topic of negotiations. Peskov said this directly, and this is obvious if you look at the world not through the prism of Belarusian-centrism, as many do in Minsk. There was little time for conversation, but there were enough topics for him that were both more important and more pressing - the Arctic, cybersecurity, Ukraine, human rights and American interference in domestic Russian affairs. The rapprochement of positions is already the fact that both sides recognized what is happening in Belarus as a problem.
Yes, the views on the problem are completely different and the parties see ways to solve it completely differently, but I have no doubt that in the conversation between the presidents about Belarus, much more was said than Biden and Peskov said at the end of it. The US desire to remove Lukashenko from his post is well known. But for Putin he is an extremely inconvenient figure. Recently, it creates a lot of problems for Russia with its unpredictability.
The Belarusian president now looks like a hooligan younger brother, who always bullies those around him, gets into trouble, and then calls his elder brother to save him, exposing himself to attack and risking his reputation. There is just one problem with this position. Russia’s brother is the Belarusian state and the Belarusian people, and not Lukashenko personally. Putin really won’t give Belarus any offense, and this was said ambiguously. But presidents come and go, and the Belarusian is no exception.
As for the West and the United States in particular, for them the importance of Belarus is greatly overestimated. For the same Biden, what is happening in some Bolivia is much more important, and Belarus is a small peripheral country with a weak economy and a destabilized political system. The West does not particularly need Belarus, as such. If, like Ukraine, it moves over to the Euro-Atlantic camp, then keeping its economy afloat, which was originally created as a continuation of the all-Soviet one and critically dependent on Russian supplies and the Russian market, will cost itself more. The several billions of aid promised in the event of “fair elections” will definitely not be enough here. The republic, of course, is of interest as another “bastion against Russian neo-imperialism,” but many such bastions have already been built. So, one more, one less - it’s not so fundamental, especially since we have a detente here. Poland, of course, will not want to give up its imperial ambitions, but who ever asked.
Belarus is important for Russia and much less important for the United States. For Biden, the Belarusian crisis is rather a vulnerable spot for Russia and a convenient subject for bargaining. The process of this bargaining has just started and the parties are ready for it, and they are quite capable of finding mutually acceptable conditions on the Belarusian problem. But Lukashenko definitely won’t like these conditions.
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