Belarus providing troops for Putin

@vivify said
Good to know. They were the reason I thought the Hill was sensible.

nope. they were reasonable despite the hill. I hard uncool things about it even when they were there

@vivify said
This explains why Belarus has gradually been taken over by Russia; it's been their plan all along.

Well, yes, provided that we agree that "their plan" refers, or at least referred originally, to both Russia and Belarus. In the 1990s, Lukashenko was vulnerable at home due to a fragile economy and he argued for a high degree of integration in the belief that his country had better prospects tied to Russia than alone. Belarusian industry depended on Russian gas and oil, and Lukashenko was glad to receive these at a heavily subsidised price.

It's also speculated that he had personal ambitions:

https://imrussia.org/en/analysis/3104-how-belarus-maneuvers-between-russia-and-the-west

"Lukashenko was pleased with the idea for other reasons: he planned to use the arrangement to ultimately replace the unpopular Yeltsin. The creation of the Union State could lead to common citizenship, which would allow Lukashenko to run for the top office in case of Yeltsin’s departure."

Of course, this plan was thwarted when Putin came to power, and since then Lukashenko has basically remained close to Russia while intermittently courting the EU and the United States when circumstances made it prudent. Lukashenko has basically got what he wanted: Belarus remains independent, its economy remains subsidised by Russia, and he remains its president.

@vivify said
This explains why Belarus has gradually been taken over by Russia; it's been their plan all along.

Thanks for your post.

Another snippet from the article I cited briefly in the last post, elaborating on Lukashenko's clever strategy of looking abroad to offset his dependency on Russia and extract concessions from Putin. (This was written in 2020, so before the present war, but after Ukraine and Russia had become enemies):

https://imrussia.org/en/analysis/3104-how-belarus-maneuvers-between-russia-and-the-west

While Moscow presumably has allies through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (established 2002), its options on the western border are limited. With the Baltic states joining NATO and Ukraine’s mainstream sentiment being anti-Russian, Belarus remains the only country that could help Russia in case of military conflict with the West. Lukashenko understands his geopolitical importance for Moscow and manages to manipulate his position with relative success.

One of Lukashenko’s routine demands is lower gas prices, which usually triggers difficult negotiations and some sort of energy crisis in Belarus. The Belarusian president then uses this as a pretext to create an outcry in Europe, which still remembers Gazprom’s “gas wars” with Ukraine. The most recent crisis took place last winter, but this time Moscow believed that Belarus was in such poor shape that it would finally cave in to pressure and allow itself to be incorporated into Russia. At that point, Lukashenko engaged in what can be described as “multi-vectorism.” This implied that Belarus would not just start to diversify its energy supplies, but also try to improve its own relationship with the West.

Despite being dubbed once as “Europe’s last dictator,” Lukashenko managed to maintain a relationship with the EU through the Eastern Partnership program for many years. But his recent rapprochement with the United States comes as a truly new effort. In February [2020], US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Minsk—the highest-profile US official to arrive to Belarus in 26 years—to discuss “sovereignty issues.” During the visit, Pompeo claimed that the US could cover 100 percent of Belarus’ energy needs. The visit alarmed Moscow, where Lukashenko’s messaged was perceived as a hint that Belarus could drift away from Russia or even turn openly hostile to it, like Ukraine. In a matter of two weeks, Minsk reached an agreement with Russia, once again squeezing the same old concession—gas prices at a lower level than it initially demanded."

@no1marauder said
You are truly a stubborn idiot.

And you're no longer an apologist for fascism - you're a straight-up fascist yourself.

Your mother should disown her womb for bearing you.