Lukashenko: Not a united Russia! The West is also good!

Against the background of the aggravation of relations between Russia and the West, especially Great Britain, the recent months have seen a revival of contacts between Belarus, our partner in the Union State, with the same Western countries, especially with Great Britain.





You don’t think anything like that, it is just a coincidence.

Russia and its allies

Today, more and more often they recall the statement of one of the Russian emperors, who said that Russia has only two allies - this is the army and navy. Even taking into account the fact that since then aviation and strategic missile forces have been added to these allies, still this is somehow not enough. Even for a country that occupies one fifth of the land.

No, well, to scare everyone, it’s enough. Somehow even self-esteem rises when everyone around you is wary. For a comfortable and safe existence, this is good, but not enough. We have to build partnerships with neighbors.

And with whom to build? Not with Ukraine? Enough of these scumbags that they were officially recognized and made handshakes. Although, I think, they overdid it a bit. They came up with the idea of ​​officially recognizing a terrorist state where the leadership came to power through a coup d'etat and launched a war against its own people with the use of a heavy military equipment! And against the Russian and Russian-speaking population living in the immediate vicinity of the metropolitan federal district of the Russian Federation.

With the republics of Donbass? Also not an option. They do not exist in nature. According to official documents signed including by Russian representatives, this is fantastic. There is neither a DNR nor an LC, there are only “separate districts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions”. ORDLO, as they say in "ridiculous Nenko." And people there live "not enough Russians" to take them into account.

It remains, perhaps, Belarus. Our younger brothers are the same Slavs. Like Kipling: "You and I are of the same blood - you and me." With them we have an allied agreement.

Belarus and its "multi-vector"

Russia and Belarus are not just allies. They are two halves of one Union State. Although our countries are completely independent from each other, they agreed on close cooperation in many sectors, especially in the military and economic areas, as well as partially in the external policy.

But, despite close cooperation with Russia, more and more disagreements have recently arisen. Suddenly, “trade wars” begin with prohibitions on the import of certain types of products under the pretext of their inconsistency with sanitary or other standards. Then suddenly one side begins to intensify contacts with countries with which the other partner is cooling relations.

The Belarusian leadership has announced its "multi-vector nature" and is trying to get the most out of any situation. Mutual import bans between Russia and the EU countries significantly enriched Belarus. Various goods, receiving a “Belarusian residence permit”, easily overcome all restrictions. And the “sanctioned raw materials”, supplied from the East and West, significantly revived the work of Belarusian manufacturers.

International contacts of Belarus

The Belarusian president has proclaimed that his country will adhere to a multi-vector policy in international relations. This means that Belarus has set a course for maintaining good relations with all its close and distant neighbors. Such a policy bears fruit, because folk wisdom says: "The affectionate calf of two mothers sucks."

No matter how obliquely glancing at Belarus from the West or East, its intermediary role can hardly be overestimated. Can you imagine a better platform for negotiations on the Donbass crisis than Minsk?

Of course, in Russia, few have any illusions about the reliability of the alliance with Belarus. The aggravation between Russia and Western countries under the pretext of poisoning the Skripals did not affect Belarus’s contacts with Western countries. They even stepped up.

For example, in the midst of anti-Russian hysteria, March 27-28, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei visited the UK. This visit can be called historical, since the last time such a trip occurred back in 1993. And Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Kravchenko was visiting the United States at that time. And this is against the background of the fact that Sergey Lavrov’s trip to the UK was canceled due to the conflict.

Belarus is imperative to create a positive image in the West. Although Lukashenko is less and less called the “last dictator of Europe”, EU sanctions against Belarus have been extended for another 2018.

So the current Belarusian leadership is trying to sit on two chairs at once, to support a “multi-vector policy”, and both Russia and the West like it. It is bad that it does not learn from other people's examples. Recently there was such a “multi-vector” president in Ukraine, Viktor Fedorovich Yanukovych, who also wanted to sit in two chairs and everyone would like. True, he did not sit still.

Of course, it is wrong to compare the Belarusian president with Viktor Fedorovich. Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko has a firmer inner core, and the economic situation in the country is better. But still, you need to be more careful when choosing friends and partners, otherwise mistakes can be expensive.