WASHINGTON D.C. —- Little that Belarus’s criminal leader, Aleksander Lukashenko, does should surprise anyone. However, committing air piracy to kidnap opposition activist Roman Protasevich, thrusts him firmly in the lead for the 2021 Villain Of The Year award.
Lukashenko has known for a long time he would never be treated as an equal by the “civilized world” where freedom and human rights still count. He’s not going to be invited on state visits to the West or to address their parliaments, senates, or congresses. He’s never going to dine at Buckingham Palace – something every communist and tinpot dictator craved despite their fake ideologies.
So Lukashenko doesn’t give a damn about Western reactions. All he cares about is his own power and survival.
He thought he had cowed Belarusians into serf-like submission and has been shocked that a huge proportion of the population has defied beatings, torture, and murder to courageously proclaim their determination to rid their country of Lukashenko’s fascist-Stalinist nightmare.
What doesn’t surprise me but does disappoint me is that many “experts” began warning, within hours of the outrage last Sunday when Lukashenk0 hijacked an airliner flying between two European Union, that if the EU/West impose severe penalties that could tip Belarus into Russia’s embrace.
Where have these experts been for the last quarter of a century? Belarus has effectively been a satrapy of Moscow since 1996 when Lukashenko first proposed a “union” between the two countries.
Although Putin has always been the dominantly virile member of the couple, imposing his desires on Lukashenka at will and using oil and gas to lubricate the relationship, the “union” hasn’t been formally consummated yet.
Some experts maintain that Lukashenko is hemmed in by the West and Russia and has played a poor hand cleverly, to keep out of the Kremlin’s embrace.
But there is scant evidence that Lukashenko has had much to do with preventing Russia from seizing complete control of Belarus. He has done his best to inculcate a Soviet-era affection among Belarusians for the “elder brother” – Russia. He has suppressed the Belarusian language, murdered and otherwise persecuted those seeking true independence for Belarus, and tried to convince his countrymen that their only worthwhile history and achievements are thanks to Moscow.
Belarus’s brutal secret police, who tellingly cling to their Soviet nomenclature of KGB, its uniformed cops and military are infested with Russian agents. Therefore, it’s a safe bet that last Sunday’s forced diversion to Minsk by a fighter jet of the Ryanair plane was known to Moscow in advance.
Its penetration of Belarus’s security apparatus has meant that the Kremlin has long been in a position to effortlessly take control of Belarus. A calculation it likely still holds to be valid despite being startled by the mass anti-Lukashenko protests triggered by rigged elections last year.
Moscow has chiefly refrained from moving into Belarus because it’s more convenient for Minsk to be totally under Moscow’s control, yet ostensibly independent.
Putin could have the troublesome Lukashenko rubbed out tomorrow. However, Lukashenka is slavishly loyal to Putin. Killing him would send an unsettling signal to Belarus’s squalid “elite” and also the Kremlin criminals securing Putin’s own grip on power. Thus, Putin is shackled to Lukashenko for the moment.
Another probable factor is that it’s convenient for Putin to have someone as reviled as Lukashenko around to make himself look, if not less evil, at least somewhat smarter. Better for Lukashenko to hold the mantle of “Europe’s last dictator” than the person who truly deserves the title.
These same types of “experts” who warn about pushing Minsk into Moscow’s embrace, also counsel against providing lethal weapons and other unequivocal support for Ukraine because it might “provoke” Russia.
And these fainthearted “experts” and “realists” keep reminding us that Russia is a nuclear power and thus the consequences of such “provocation” risk catastrophe.
Their message dictates that possession of nuclear weapons by a potential enemy is sufficient reason for the West to abandon its principles about freedom, international rule of law, opposition to changes of borders by force, championing human rights, etc.
Expressing such sentiments emboldens Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine and encourages it elsewhere.
If all it takes to force the West into submission is a display of missiles on Red Square then Western nuclear powers – the U.S., U.K. and France – might as well save billions or trillions of dollars by scrapping their arsenals and inviting Russia, China and North Korea impose their thuggish visions of order by brute force and terror on the world.
The readers of this newspaper are familiar with the adages about history repeating itself, they know about the perils of appeasement and recognize the manifold similarities between Adolf Hitler’s playbook for military aggression and Putin’s action in Ukraine.
Putin and the Kremlin are gangsters and everyone knows the only thing that mobsters and Russian leaders respect is force or the credible threat of force.
Although Belarusian opposition leaders want Lukashenko and Putin to be treated as separate problems, the truth is that Lukashenko can only exist because there is a Putin and the best way for the West to influence Lukashenko’s behavior is to pile the pressure on Putin.
Belarus’s fight for freedom is inextricably linked to Ukraine’s battle against Putin’s imperial plans. If Ukraine loses that struggle, Belarus can kiss goodbye to democracy for years to come.
For Ukraine, the June 16 scheduled summit in Switzerland between American President Joseph Biden and Putin is of paramount importance – perhaps the most important meeting since Moscow invaded in 2014. It will also be vitally important for Belarus.
I do not believe Biden “blinked” or conceded anything when he proposed a meeting with Putin – it is the stronger, bolder party that offers talks.
I think making an almost completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline a determinative contest of strength between Washington D.C. and Moscow would be foolish and pointless. Causing the gas pipeline across Ukraine to become redundant should not be seen as a complete evil.
It has been the single largest source of corruption for Ukraine that has hindered its economic development since independence. It seems bizarre to want to preserve a pipeline that has kept Kyiv’s leaders in thrall to Moscow. It’s odder to complain that an enemy trying to destroy your country will no longer be paying $two billion in transit fees.
You only have to look at Ukraine’s broken roads, pathetic railway system, and generally crumbling infrastructure to know that those transit fees over the years haven’t gone to Ukraine’s benefit. They have been fought over and stolen by the most odious among Ukraine’s greedy leaders and amoral oligarchs.
The most important issues for Biden to address at the summit include massive Russian cyberattacks to steal American secrets and influence elections, Moscow’s assault on civilized and decent international behavior, and its aggression against and occupation of parts of Ukraine.
America, as usual, is the most important country in defending the “free world.”
If Biden does not demand real Russian concessions and compliance on Ukraine, with the corollary of massive military aid, including lethal weapons, for Kyiv if Moscow refuses, then America, will have condemned Europe to diktat by Kremlin violence. And likely to a war that would be the almost inevitable eventual backlash to Russian aggression.
Belarus can serve as an initial litmus test at the Geneva summit.
Putin will maintain he has no influence over Lukashenko, in the same way, he lies about Russia’s military presence in Ukraine. But Biden can ask for Putin’s “cooperation” in the release of Roman Protasevich, other political prisoners, and a rerun of elections in Belarus under international observation.
If even that much cannot be achieved, Biden should either run up a white flag over the White House or dispatch the first planeloads of deadly weapons for Ukraine’s armed forces.
