Leonid Gozman: "Brother at the gate"

"The Kremlin will not give the Belarus of the opposition. Putin personally is very bad about Lukashenko, I would like to see someone else in its place, but Lukashenko cannot allow the will of the people by the will of Lukashenko. Russia and Belarus are too close and mentally - the defeat of the Belarusian dictator as a result of the elections will push the democratic movement in which the authoritarian regime is already retained by the last forces. Lukashenko will not cope, the Russian Federation may come to the rescue, ”writes a public figure on his Facebook page.

"To justify the invasion, the schemes tested already in the case of Ukraine are the preparing NATO intervention, nationalists seeking to ban the Russian language and persecute the Russians - or, conversely, the help of Belarusians, the salvation from the repressions of the bankrupt regime of Lukashenko. In this last case, Putin will play the role of the defender of the fraternal people from tyranny.

Russian intervention, no matter what slogans it was carried out, not only allowed Putin to annex, finally, Belarus. In conditions of sharply decreasing popularity, mass disappointment in the regime and in it personally and large -scale protests throughout Russia, Putin, obviously, believes that he can count on the same enthusiasm of the people who accompanied the seizure of Crimea.

This, of course, will not happen. Russian society is tired of the confrontation with the whole world, and the intervention itself in Belarus will be accompanied by large -scale human losses. Nevertheless, the Russian leadership, which has no plan to withdraw its country from the systemic crisis, can go to this adventure.

And here a lot depends on the readiness of the West for tough coordinated actions. Not only serious sanctions against Lukashenko and his regime are important, but, for example, the official recognition of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya as President-Elect. This would be not only the moral support of the anti -Lukashenko forces, but would also contribute to the formation of an alternative political entity, with which everyone will have to be reckoned with, including the leadership of Russia. "