[Skybird]

This report puts the movement of Russian troops into Belarus in a different light. Der Tagesspiegel:

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At the mercy of big brother: Does Putin now want to annex Belarus, too?

Research reveals plans by Moscow to annex its neighbor Belarus. How realistic these mind games are and what role Lukashenko plays in them.

When Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenko visited his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin near Moscow on Friday, the mood was already tense. "Thank you for coming!" is how Putin welcomed his guest. "As if I could have refused," Lukashenko countered. It is an exchange of words that gives a deep insight. For Lukashenko, Putin is now above all only one thing: a danger.

This is also evidenced by a recently published and hitherto secret Kremlin document from the summer of 2021, which outlines a step-by-step plan for a Russian takeover of Belarus. This infiltration is to happen at all levels: political, economic, military. The paper was uncovered by an international research team, in which WDR, NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung participated from the German side.

The credibility of the document is confirmed, among others, by the head of Estonian foreign intelligence Kaupo Rosin. "Moreover, I think it is plausible that Russia is aiming to take over Belarus as a sovereign nation in the long term," Rosin says. However, he questions how much independence Belarus has left at all since the start of the Ukraine war: "Belarusian forces are largely commanded from Moscow."

The Russian strategy paper addresses the goal of creating a "union state" by 2030 in which Belarus is completely absorbed by Russia. Measures to achieve this goal are divided into the political/defense, trade/economic, and social spheres and broken down into short-term (by 2022), medium-term (by 2025), and long-term (2030) stages. The ultimate goal is the complete Russification of Belarusian society.

What is particularly explosive about this is that Belarusian ruler Lukashenko is to have hardly any role of his own in this endeavor. "It is rather a takeover of Belarus, and not, as is publicly proclaimed, an integration of Belarus, in which the country retains a certain independence," says Eastern Europe expert Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Both rhetorically and strategically, the plans go much further than anything that has been discussed so far.

The discussion about a union of states between Belarus and Russia has existed since the mid-1990s. After Belarus became independent from the Soviet Union, the government also kept open a closer relationship with the West. However, this was overturned in 1994 when Lukashenko took office and sought to re-establish ties with Russia.

To this end, he signed several union treaties with then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin between 1995 and 1999, which were to culminate in ever closer integration of the two states. So far, however, only isolated defense and economic policy goals have been implemented.

Larger-scale projects such as a common currency, a shared financial budget or merged political structures remained pilot projects or failed due to political differences. Under Putin's presidency, agreement was reached on a customs agreement and a limited military alliance. In 2002, however, Lukashenko rejected the proposal to integrate Belarus into the Russian territory as a new province. Today, such a "no" would carry less weight.

The Belarusian mass protests in the wake of the 2020 election fraud represented a turning point for the regime. Stefan Meister describes this as Lukashenko's dilemma: "He has decided against his own population and in favor of Russia in order to retain power. As a result, he is becoming Russia's appendage and his autonomy is shrinking."

Western sanctions have also completely aligned the economy with Russia, he said. "This is a creeping disempowerment of the Belarusian president," Meister says. Now, over months and years, the thumbscrews would be tightened and the pressure would grow.

"Lukashenko has trapped himself," says Pavel Slunkin, a former Belarusian diplomat and visiting scholar at the European Council on Foreign Relations, as well. Before the 2020 elections, his foreign policy would still have been balanced and he could keep Russia in equilibrium with other partners. But then Lukashenko had to resort to Moscow's help to stay in power: "Russia was the reason Lukashenko survived in 2020," Slunkin says.

Now he can only try to slow down the process of the Russian takeover, he said. "Changing sides is no longer an option for him." Without a Ukrainian victory against Russia and its political destabilization, he sees no real options for Lukashenko to act.

Russia's incorporation plans, however, are a cause for concern beyond Belarus. "We have some indications that there is to be integration of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," says Meister, who calls these plans an "imperialist project on the back burner."

There is also pressure in Armenia to join the union state, he says. But the threat is most acute in Georgia's two separatist regions, he says. South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been permanently occupied by Russia since the 2008 Caucasus War. Belarus could now provide the blueprint for further Greater Russian integration projects: "Lukashenko is becoming a stooge for this policy."
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