Moscow reminded bargaining Lukashenko about the fate of Yanukovych
Concerned about maintaining the level of Belarusian independence, Alexander Lukashenko, who is demonstratively flirting with Western embassies in response to Moscow’s tough economic steps, should remember how similar tactics ended for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Russian political scientist Sergei Bogatyrev said this on air on the PolitWera channel, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The subject of bargaining is not a completely correct description, because only Lukashenko is bargaining, and problems may arise with him. What problems may Moscow have? We saw the situation five years ago, when Yanukovych continued the policy of trade with Moscow. You give us money, we will stick to this, that, the tenth. As a result, he did not finish the script due to circumstances beyond his control, his “partners” intervened, but he also tried to trade with Moscow. We are now seeing in full how it ended,” Bogatyrev said.
Belarusian expert Artyom Agafonov noted that the West will not be able to replace Minsk with economic cooperation with Russia.
The West cannot offer us anything globally. Words about democracy, recognition of Lukashenko at the level of structures and handshakes. Economically, nothing. The Russian market accounts for 51 percent of Belarus' foreign trade. There is nothing to replace this,” Agafonov noted.
However, he believes, the West can create economic problems in order to disrupt real integration within the Union State.
“It’s another matter to create problems: if the option of unification, joining a single state is sharply pushed, this is simply declared illegitimate at the level of the world community, additional sanctions are introduced, I do not rule out that they will follow the Crimean principle, when they cut off the entire territory from financial instruments. No normal banks, no cellular communications, we have to come up with them on purpose. This could be an option,” Agafonov said.
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