It's Just Beginning: The Kremlin Prepares Response to Lukashenka's Provocations
- 1.11.2021, 8:10
And things are going to get even more interesting.
Lukashenka, during his talks with Prosecutor General of Russia Igor Krasnov, held in Minsk on October 28, highly praised the importance of the "Supreme State Council of the Union State" (SSC) appointed for November 4, 2021, Russian political analyst Andrei Suzdaltsev wrote in his blog.
In September-October 2021, preceding the SSC, Russia through the mouths of, first of all, media persons and federal channels, whose interests and reputation was attacked from Minsk, reminded Lukashenka several times that he remained under the "microscope" and "one step aside..." etc.
The point is that Lukashenka and his political regime need resources. And huge ones. The reason is that we do not know any authoritarian regime that would be able to create an efficient and fast-growing economy with its resources. Authoritarianism means guaranteed poverty for the population. By the way, the population of the Republic of Belarus could have long been convinced that Lukashenka is the guarantor of endless "desperate times," poverty, scarcity of everything and guest workers in foreign countries. Lukashenka is the "president of poverty".
An authoritarian regime can get resources only by war, which was unleashed, for example, by A. Hitler (a typical authoritarian Führer regime with a full-fledged fascist (racist) ideology, political party and state) or by different imitations of alliances and integration. Alliance implies payment for "services" on the world stage; integration implies financial and resource advances, but not real integration itself. Lukashenka chose the latter - imitation of integration...
Hence, the constant military rhetoric of Lukashenka. He constantly provokes NATO and the EU, or threatens to start, jointly with Russia, the Third World War (in fact, he declares war to the West on behalf of Moscow!), or spreads rumours about Poland's readiness to occupy Grodno, etc. At times, the rhetoric resembled the TASS reports of March 1969, during the fighting on Damansky Island.
It is clear that Lukashenka now urgently needs the role of a "victim" of a NATO aggressor.
Russia knows and understands it. Minsk is seeking an excuse to "offend" and immediately bill it for billions. Hence, Moscow's passive position in response to the hysteria of Lukashenka's journalists against their colleagues in Russia. Moscow eventually gave up on all the very licentious insults from Minsk. In Minsk, the hysteria with Russian "media bastards" turns into an endless series, as does the wave of insults to the Russian president on the Belarusian Internet. Surprisingly, no one has been found and brought to justice... May those who are supposed to find and found supporters of the executed Andrei Zeltser on the Internet be themselves writing nasty things about Russia and its leadership in chat rooms and forums?
The Belarusian leadership, inciting the agitprop against Moscow, is waiting for any reaction of the Russian state to immediately put the SSC in danger - "insult", "humiliation", "disrespect" and so on. Moscow is hanging on by a thread but sometimes has to respond on Russian federal TV channels to Minsk's thugs with a microphone. The poll on Belarus that caused such a stir in the media space became a reason for the escalation of the Belarusian hysteria. Meanwhile, the polling proved to be a multifunctional tool that, on the one hand, showed Lukashenka's vulnerability. On the other hand, it proved that the issue of Russia-Belarus integration in Russia is on the edge - 43% of Russians do not want Russia to unite with Belarus.
The threat of provocations by Lukashenka remains acute on the threshold of the SSC, as it is already clear that Lukashenka will not receive a billion-dollar integration bonus.
What's next? It's going to be even more interesting...