Russia’s Belarus dilemma can be formulated as two questions. Should Moscow continue the process of political integration with Belarus–which necessarily entails interaction with and support of the regime of President Aleksandr Lukashenko–in order to enjoy certain geopolitical, security and economic dividends? Or, should Moscow gradually give up the current bilateral “special relationship,” which depletes Russia’s financial resources, implicitly complicates the Russian-Western agenda, and threatens to bring negative effects for future relations between the two countries should the opposition one day come to power in Belarus? […]
Memo #:
182
Series:
1
PDF:
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pm_0182.pdf
Director of the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia Programme
Affiliation
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Expertise
Russia-EU Relations, Internal and Foreign Policy of Ukraine and Belarus
