Double blow

The new ambassador of Russia in Belarus was endowed with the status of a special representative

All the Belarusian summer passed under the noise of conversations and rustle rustles about the new after Russia. Moreover, these conversations began in June, when there was no question of changes. The Ambassador of Russia and Duin Dipkorpus Alexander Surikov, who worked in Minsk for 12 years, has been longer than all his colleagues-in June during a press conference on the question of possible resignation, only said that "if the president decides, then the issue will be closed, only everything."

On August 24, the question was closed: the ambassador of Russia was Mikhail Babich.

In early summer, in Belarusian political circles they talked about the possible appointment of Alexander Tkachev or Vladislav Surkov in Minsk.

Everyone referred to some sources in diplomatic circles. There were no surnames of Babich among potential ambassadors.

And only in mid -July, on the slightly subsided waves of rumors, the name of the actual, as it turned out, the candidates for the post of Russia's ambassador Mikhail Babich, was pumped. But the stormy reaction was not at all the name: in the end, the figures of Tkachev and Surkov are much more scandalous. Babich, with all the intricacies of a career in Belarusian-Russian relations, did not “lit up”, as, in general, in international relations.

The only attempt by the President of Russia to make him a diplomat was unsuccessful: in 2016, Ukraine refused to accept Mikhail Babich as an ambassador. So for Belarusians, he is still a figure, rather neutral.

And the violent reaction of the Belarusian political community is not associated at all with the figure of Babich, but with the endowment of it with additional powers - the position of special representative of the President of the Russian Federation in Belarus.

All previous ambassadors of Russia were not a single special representative, but the ambassadors in Ukraine since 2001 also wore this honorary title. This, according to the official version, emphasized the special relations of Russia and Ukraine and their extreme mutual importance. However, the status of the special representative of the president to some extent simplified contacts with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the country of stay. But it was in Kyiv, where Russian ambassadors needed additional diplomatic weight. But in Minsk, where the entire Foreign Ministry is always ready to grow up with rugs in front of every Russian official of any rank, it really looked threatening. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not comment on anything, referring to the fact that the request of Agren did not receive from Russia. Opposition politicians said that Babich was going to Minsk as a governor, that this is the reincarnation of the Muravyev-Sveta and that in Ukraine the presence of an ambassador-spokesman ultimately led to annexation and war. They vaguely hoped that Alexander Lukashenko also understood this well and now should resist.

They recalled that rumors about his stroke did not arise in Minsk, but miraculously materialized from Russian telegram channels, and this was the beginning, and now the continuation should be.

It is not known whether Alexander Lukashenko resisted the appointment of Mikhail Babich, but Minsk was clearly in no hurry and even dragged on with Agreman. And only two days after the meeting of Lukashenko and Putin in Sochi, August 24, the official appointment of the ambassador took place. The parties agreed. The press secretary of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Anatoly Eye said that the endowment of the ambassador with the status of a special representative for the development of trade and economic cooperation indicates a high level of Belarusian-Russian cooperation.

Analysts spoke that Babich’s task would be to “reboot” the Union State and the return to the past economic integration. The opposition is that Moscow, appointing the ambassador of a former representative in the regions, shows the Belarusian state and personally its leader in the Russian political scheme, and at the same time puts the task of dealing with the fraudulent fuel re-export and unpaid Russian debts before the new ambassador.

If the arithmetic arithmetic average is removed from the official and unofficial versions, it turns out that Mikhail Babich was appointed to Minsk not quite as an ambassador, but not a governor general. In known circles, this is called "looking."