Translated material
When Lukashenko decides to break with Russia
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko never spared the epithets addressed to his "older brothers" from Russia. It was worth arising in the relations of the two countries of any conflict, and Lukashenko was not nothing to be stolen to brand the Russian leadership forbarbarism , stupidity and brainlessness , scam and so on. Everyone is accustomed to this, first of all - in the Kremlin, where the Escapades try not to notice. Imagine that the official Kiev would have dubbed our leaders, no matter what a wave of anger raised the Russian Foreign Ministry, which does not miss the opportunity to comment on things that have nothing to do with the Russian foreign policy - like the problem of Ukrainian housing and communal services.
Let it say
Moscow allows Lukashenko a lot, he perfectly understands this and does not disdain it to use it, supporting the reputation of the master of the conversational genre. Moreover, the words of the Belarusian president and his affairs live in parallel planes, intersecting only occasionally. And the criticism of the Kremlin in the speeches of Alexander Grigoryevich, no matter how tough it was, was invariably replaced by a complimentary tone as soon as Minsk received another Russian loan.
Russia now, by and large, is not to Lukashenko - let Belarus remain, in fact, the only ally to the west of Smolensk
However, since the beginning of this August, Lukashenko, it seems, really decided to build a new line of behavior in relation to the eastern neighbor. And today, it seems, it becomes extremely clear that all the Russian-Belarusian “allied” is kept exclusively on the dependence of Minsk on Russian money. And as soon as Lukashenko has the opportunity to get off this financial hook, he will not pretend to use it. The Belarusian leader is already taking some steps in this direction.
In early August, Lukashenko at a meeting with independent journalists, and such a rendezvous in itself has already nonsense, admitted that the “Russian world”, whose apologet he himself was and which today in Russia is perceived by kitchen patriots as the only panacea from the corruption of the West - ordinary propaganda stupidity and Belarus have nothing to do with it. According to Lukashenko, even the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Minsk, to which he turned to the consultation, has no idea what this notorious “Russian world” is.
In Moscow, Lukashenko’s statement was left without comment. Its other confession caused no reaction when, commenting on the possibility of transferring the Russian Federation to control the Minsk Plant of Wheel Tergets OJSC, Russia said that Russia has no brains or money. Perhaps for the first time the Belarusian president allowed himself such a rude diagnosis.
The lack of a Moscow reaction to Lukashenko’s attacks is easily explained. Now, by and large, to Russia, not to Lukashenko - let Belarus remain, in fact, the only ally to the west of Smolensk. The Kremlin, mired in confrontation with the EU and the USA, is concerned about much more important issues, so the talkativeness of the Belarusian leader remains unattended. But here again, a stick about the two-edges-the more problems Russia will have and the deeper it will link into them, and this is what we are now observing, the more backlash will appear in Minsk's vibrations between the parties to the world.
On a hook by the Kremlin
Today, Lukashenko’s gap with the “older brother” seems unlikely, since such an opportunity is divided into inexorable statistics. By April 2015, the external debt of Belarus decreased by $ 1 billion compared to last year and amounted to $ 38.2 billion, which is approximately half of GDP. The main creditors are the IMF, China, the EURSEC and the EBRD, but Russia remains the main thing. In late July of that year, the Ministry of Finance of Belarus announced the receipt of a Russian loan for $ 760 million under an intergovernmental agreement. At the same time, at the SCO and the SCO summit in Ufa in June, Minsk asked for another $ 3 billion, but the Kremlin has not yet made a decision on this money.
The elite, now in power in Russia, is becoming less predictable and desperate, and her reaction against Lukashenko is becoming increasingly difficult
Without Russia, it is difficult to imagine the foreign trade of the republic. The Russian Federation accounts for more than 40% of Belarusian exports and more than half the volume of imports of Belarus. In addition, Belarus is not only a transiter (annually the transit of various goods brings the country about $ 3 billion), but also the largest processor of Russian oil - it is expected that in 2015 $ 1.5 billion of exported customs duties from the export of oil products developed from Russian raw materials will be credited to the republic’s budget. Accordingly, the energy of Belarus is almost completely dependent on Russian supplies.
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