Word: lukashenko
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...former Soviet republic, Georgia, confronted with steep increases to Gazprom prices, is urgently seeking alternative supplies. Both countries are at odds with the Kremlin over pro-Western policies. Belarus, by contrast, has been seen as Moscow's closest ally - so close, in fact, that in 1997, its President, Alexander Lukashenko, signed a pact with Russia that envisaged eventually replacing the Belarusan ruble with the Russian one and suggested a constitutional change that could allow the formal inclusion of Belarus in the Russian Federation. A decade later, both countries say they still intend to implement the agreement, but the dying days...
...winter, Russia's state-owned Gazprom turned off the gas on democratizing Ukraine, which has often tacked the other way from Russian President Vladimir Putin and the other former Soviet republics under his thrall. This year, however, the focus is Belarus, the nouvelle Stalinist state run by Alexander Lukashenko, a man who has tried to appear to be Putin's acolyte. On Jan. 1, unless Belarus agrees to pay double what it used to for Russian gas ($105 per 1000 cubic meters instead of the current $46), Moscow will cut off gas supplies and leave its erstwhile ally...
...Putin would not need to send troops to accomplish the expansion of his Russian Federation. Khalip and other observers believe that Putin is using the price hike to pressure Lukashenko to agree to make the Russian ruble the sole currency of Belarus. More importantly, Putin wants Lukashenko to stop dragging his feet on establishing the "Allied State of Russia and Belarus" - proclaimed in 1997 - and to sign the Constitutional Act in 2007 that could lead to the formal inclusion of Belarus into the Russian Federation. That would make Putin the first reunifier of the Slavic lands lost by the previous...
...Might these simply be the imaginings of the conspiratorial Slavic mind? Russia merely says that the threatened cutoff is business. Market prices are for all, friend or foe. And for practical reasons, Russia may want to exert full control over Beltransgaz, Belarus' gas distribution network. The cornerstone of Lukashenko's regime has been his ability to run the economy on cheap Russian gas as well as to sell expensive products refined from cheap Russian crude oil to other customers in Europe. If Russia goes ahead with the cutoff, Belarus threatens to hijack gas designated for European customers that...
...Lukashenko might take advantage of the crisis by imposing a state of emergency and assuming even greater dictatorial powers. He could also make humanitarian appeals to the world community to prevent Putin from freezing his people out of power - and himself out of the Presidential palace. If he surrenders to Putin, the consequences are fraught. Much as Belarussians need their fuel, they do value their independence. The temperatures may be cold in Minsk over the New Year. But it will be a hot time...