Yauheni Preiherman, who heads the discussion platform “Minsk Dialogue,” believes Belarus-EU relations face three problems: a lingering deficit of mutual trust, institutional and personal interests set against the improvement of relations, and a lack of unity in the face of externally boosted geopolitical tensions (Minskdialogue.by, November 25). The gist of the third problem is that Lithuania and Ukraine are too eager to portray themselves as last redoubts in the West’s “civilizational struggle” with Russia, so they do what they can to compromise Minsk as a loyal ally of Moscow. Illustratively, Lithuania’s losing battle with the Belarusian nuclear power plant has received half-hearted support from Brussels in favor of Vilnius (Delfi, November 22), and Ukraine is now embroiled in a full-blown spy-scandal with Belarus (see EDM, November 28).
I'm unclear if the argument is that Lithuania and Ukraine are trying to prevent Belarus from being accepted in the West or if it is simply an expression of their deep interest in the fate of Belarus as a non-Russian puppet.
If the former, huh? How is it in the interest of either of those countries to basically push Belarus into Russia's grip? That's insane. They need a buffer state around Minsk and so does NATO.
If the latter, well yeah, Belarus is probably the most important territory in today's Europe because a Russian army could hit Lithuania directly from Belarus and a Russiam army could outflank Ukraine's eastern front and threaten Kiev easily, stretching Ukraine's military perhaps to the breaking point in a general war.
The sad fact is that Lukashenko can be a son of a bitch as long as he is our son of a bitch.
