Russia-Belarus Relationship

kvs wrote:Belorus is a fake country created from the Bolshevik Soviet Socialist Republic.   If we are going to use regional linguistic variation as
a basis for statehood, then England should be split into over twenty countries.    There is more linguistic variation from village to village
in the UK than there is between Belorus and the rest of Russia.

Ukraine is a more special case since its history ruled by other countries spans into centuries.   They are much more assimilated by Poland,
Austro-Hungary, etc.  And Ukrainian is really a distinct language compared to Belorussian.

Russia needs to get its act together and foist regime change on this fake clown show of country and especially its head dictator clown.
It will be totally unforgivable if NATO is given a chance to pull the same type of coup that they did in Ukraine.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

calripson wrote:The key phrase in the proposed Russia-Belarus alliance was "if the people (of both countries) support it". I seriously doubt there is much desire for union among Belarussians under 35 and particularly young urban people. I have met Belarussians in their forties who make a point to differentiate themselves from Russians. I think it would be a very hard sell.

To be fair if Putin and Lukashenka want this done 100 percent what the people want do not matter they would simply rig any vote.

Not saying they will, merely saying in the end it's what those two decide because if push comes to shove they can control what the outcome is.

kvs wrote:

Regular wrote:Why would average belarussian would like to join Russia? It's like Canadians joining USA

That analogy is ludicrous.   Canada and the USA were never part of the same entity even if they were part of the British Empire
before the US revolution.   At the time of the US revolution, the North-East core of America was around for over 150 years.
Canada did not exit in 1630.   It was French until the early 1760s.   The English, Irish and Scottish settlers who came after
1765 established their own country like the US settlers did after 1630.  

There was no such thing as Belorus as a separate political entity until the Bolsheviks created it after 1917.   The reason for
the Belorus republic was BS.   There is no ethnic difference.   There is a slight difference in dialect.   There are dialects
in the UK that are almost impossible to understand by other English speakers.   So England, by the Bolshevik and your logic,
should be partitioned into several pieces.   Utter BS.  

It's time to bury the Bolshevik legacy.   The Bolsheviks mirror the current anti-white PC SJWs in the USA and other parts
of NATO.   They hated Russia and split it into pieces to eventually destroy it.   But their big agenda went off the rails
by the 1930s.   However, the BS partitioning of Russia into pieces persisted.  

Regular wrote:
Same as Belarus has much better living standards than Russia. Wage gap doesn't matter when living costs are so much lower. Not to mention Belarus is much cleaner, safer country
...
Russia simply has very little to offer to simple Belarusian. But maybe you can tell me how life would improve under rule of fat moscow cats? It's not Crimea.. Best for Russia would be to fix their own backyard before going for Belarus unification.

flamming_python wrote:

Regular wrote:
Same as Belarus has much better living standards than Russia. Wage gap doesn't matter when living costs are so much lower. Not to mention Belarus is much cleaner, safer country
...
Russia simply has very little to offer to simple Belarusian. But maybe you can tell me how life would improve under rule of fat moscow cats? It's not Crimea.. Best for Russia would be to fix their own backyard before going for Belarus unification.

A house divided is a house that falls.

Either Russia pursues closer integration with it's ex-Soviet neighbours or sooner or later we and them will all be under someone's boot. Who won't offer nearly as favorable conditions.

I don't think that Belarus would stand to gain by becoming another wanna-be member of the EU; being forced to shut-down its heavy industry as 'uncompetitive' and not green enough, cut its economic, defence & social ties to Russia, raise its heating/electricity/water bills for its population by ten-fold, be forced to import expensive LNG gas from America, raise the pension age to above the average life-expectancy, export its working age citizens for low-grade work and have its best and brightest permanently emigrate to Europe, have all its elite buy up mansions in the Alps, Brazil, French Riviera and repeat Brussels' talking points at every opportunity, introduce social-engineering campaigns, "LGBT-friendliness" and other privileges to select minorities... and make up some BS nationalist myths to feed to the population to justify it all.
Yet w/o Russia that would be the only option available to it.
And if they try to insist on their independence vis-a-vis the West without Russia to back them up then they'll be sanctioned to hell and then bombed.

I personally am not too fussed with the type of integration. A purely economic union, a Soviet Union, a Union State... as long as it beings benefits to all parties and is sustainable.. so not like the current EU then.

As for what Russia can offer to the Belarussians - well the thing is that it's already offering everything, even at the expense of its own welfare.. Russians would be richer if we sold oil, gas, electricity, military hardware to Belarus at market prices, while banning food & dairy imports from the country until they stop reselling stuff from the EU. Of course Belarus wouldn't be able to afford it, nor its current level of social services and economic development if that were the case. But then we could just sell those commodities instead to somebody who could.
I'm by no means saying that's what we should do, like I said I'm content with the current relationship that we have, and I'll be content with unification too. I'm just saying - their lives have already improved thanks to those same Moscow fat cats.

ATLASCUB wrote:The Union State should be just but a stepping stone into the complete eradication of the idea of such thing as a territory called Belarus and a "Belarussian" identity.

Russia for Russians. To repeat the mistakes of the Soviets would be grade school disaster.

In Minsk, the ambassador of the Russian Federation was called the "bookkeeper" and accused of contempt

A spokesman for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, Anatoly Glaz, accused Russian Ambassador Mikhail Babich of disrespecting Belarusians and ignorance of the realities of the host country. The words of the representative of the Foreign Ministry published on the official website of the Ministry.



RIA Novosti has asked the press secretary to comment on the interview given by Babich to the agency for the development of Belarusian-Russian relations.

I would like to recommend (the ambassador) to devote time to delve into the specifics of the host country, get acquainted with its history and show some respect

- said Anatoly Glaz, noting that such a style of work sometimes gives much better results than the role of “public diplomacy” uncharacteristic of the Russian diplomatic school.

According to him, the relations between Moscow and Minsk are deeper than the "tweaked dial-up of numbers, which the Russian ambassador regularly grabs".

However, it is his right to determine for himself the bar, which turns him into a bookkeeper or a budding accountant.

- said a spokesman.

He added that Babich apparently did not understand the difference between the federal district and the independent state. According to Glaz, a more detailed response to the statement of the Russian ambassador will be given soon.

Recall, in his interview, Babich, in particular, pointed out the tough position of Moscow on the development of the further integration of the two countries. He also stated that it would be strange to pay Minsk for the deployment of Russian military facilities in Belarus. In addition, the ambassador demonstrated examples with figures that the increase in Belarus’s trade turnover with the EU is achieved through the supply of petroleum products produced from Russian oil.


https://vpk.name/news/260789_v_minske_posla_rf_nazvali_schetovodom_i_obvinili_v_neuvazhenii.html

https://m.vz.ru/news/2019/4/11/972739.html wrote: The head of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in the context of statements about oil pipelines, criticized Russia's policy, saying that Moscow was “insolent to the extent that they begin to twist their arms” to Minsk.

“The good that we do for the Russian Federation constantly turns into evil. They have already become arrogant to such an extent that they are starting to twist our arms, ” BelTA quotes him as saying . Lukashenko, however, did not specify who exactly he means in Russia.

The head of Belarus said that the republic, if necessary, will close the oil pipelines for repairs, despite the transit of Russian oil through them. “If you need to put on repair oil pipelines and oil pipelines that go through Belarus, install and repair,” he instructed at a meeting with the economic bloc of the government.

Earlier this week, Belarus announced its intention to increase the cost of transit of Russian oil by 23%.

Lukashenko said that Russia's actions to close its market for a number of Belarusian goods are “sanctions-like,” “one enterprise, then another” is closing. According to him, Russia does not like “either carrots, or lettuce, or already cucumbers,” “they have a suspicion that we are not delivering something from there.” He noted that the closure of Belarusian enterprises takes place “every day”.

“They are closing the market for us,” he said. "They themselves are under sanctions and condemn it, and I absolutely support them here, but at the same time they are fighting with similar weapons against their closest allies," the head of Belarus lamented.

The Belarusian leader also criticized the government for not seeing problems with supplies to the Russian market. “We must take action. Well, we are all the time: we are beaten on the left cheek - we substitute the right. Understand and report separately next week, ”Lukashenka stressed.

Recall that in April Russia banned thesupply of apples and pears from Belarus. The Rosselkhoznadzor stressed that the ban is associated with the re-export of products from countries in respect of which Russia imposed restrictions in response to economic sanctions.

In February, the newspaper VIEW wrote that Belarus had found a new way to make money on the wealth of Russia.

https://m.vz.ru/economy/2019/2/22/965597.html

GarryB wrote:In other words the Russians are blocking the Belarus companies from buying EU produce and selling it on the Russian market as if they produced it themselves... so Russia is not introducing new sanctions on Belarus, they are enforcing their sanctions on the EU which Belarus is trying to bypass.

And Belarus trying to increase oil transit fees... how is that Russia twisting their arm or using strong arm tactics?

Maybe it would be better for Russia to stop subsidising Belarus and look after its own instead... if Belarus want to become Russian again they can benefit from that but the goal should be Russians first.