In the US they complain that they cannot pull Belarus out of the “Kremlin embrace”
Even if the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko decides to betray Russia, he will not succeed due to the powerful pro-Russian lobby among the bureaucrats and military of his country.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States Michael Karpetner stated this in an interview with the Belarusian opposition publication Reform, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I think Lukashenko is currently in the process of realizing his mistakes. Because the Kremlin's embrace is becoming stronger and stronger. He feels more and more stuffy in them every day, and he tries to figure out how to slip out of them. But Russian influence on the army, intelligence services, officials and the economy is too strong. And at the moment in time we are in – in 2019, it will be very difficult to pull Belarus out of this entire network of interdependent connections,” Karpetner said.
At the same time, he believes that closer integration of Belarus and Russia, up to the point of merging into one state, will not cause strong protest in the West.
“The response from the democratic world will not be impressive. Unfortunately, many countries will say: “Well... Belarus was already in the Russian orbit. There is no point in wasting energy and resources on arguing with Russia also over Belarus.” Of course, there will be people who will insist that Russia bear serious costs in the form of sanctions, but I don’t think that this path will be chosen by the majority of people who determine the position of the West,” Karpetner said.
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