Uladzimir Matskevich: The prime goals of Russian aggression are Belarus and Kazakhstan

Many integration initiatives of Belarus and Kazakhstan’s leaders are made to forestall the expansionist Kremlin plans.

More than one hundred thousand Russians went out to Kremlin’s walls to celebrate the anniversary of Crimea’s occupation – biggest achievement of Putin’s Russia that is worth “celebrating”.

An all-Russian orgy “Crimea is ours”, Putin’s disappearance and reappearance, and further Kremlin’s expansionist plans “EuroBelarus” Information Service discussed with Uladzimir Matskevich, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus “.

- Under the auspices of the Moscow municipality, the city is celebrating the anniversary of Crimea’s annexation. More than one hundred thousand Russians went out to Kremlin’s walls to celebrate the occupation if the Ukrainian peninsula. Does Russia believe that “Crimea is ours” is here to stay?

- For any dictatorial and authoritarian regime it is no problem to unite a hundred thousand people for a rally. It doesn’t prove anything.

Kremlin has no confidence that “Crimea is theirs”, and that is why such pompous event has been organized.

- The West has repeatedly stated that it will never accept Crimea’s occupation. However, over the year neither Ukraine nor the EU took any real steps to return the occupied territories. Are there real chances for Ukraine to get back the peninsula?

- We need to clearly distinguish the answer to theory – how it can happen in the long-term perspective and in realpolitik.

From the point of view of realpolitik it is very hard to assume that in the near future Crimea’s issue will be resolved, as such situation can last for years and decades without solution, as it happened with Transdniestria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Unless there is real aspiration for radical and decisive solution of the situation in the world, such precedents lead to freezing of the situation for decades.

- To forgive Crimea’s occupation means to free Kremlin’s hands for establishing new world order in accordance with the Putin’s scenario. What steps can the West and Ukraine take to get back Crimea?

- There are three real variants for solving the situation.

First one is the possible of military operation no one will dare to go for.

Second is the operation of the West related to enhancement of sanctions and pressure on Russia. However, the world practice of sanctions re such regimes demonstrates how ineffective such actions are.

One more variant is Russia’s disintegration into numerous republics, players with independent lives, while the enclaves that used to be under Russia’s control are given under control of other states.

In the medium term we can model one more scenario: fall of Putin’s dictatorship, denouncement of the decision re Crimea’s annexation and Crimea’s referendum.

How possible is such scenario? Democratic opposition of the 90s has started losing its influence long time ago, and now it is completely demoralized and crushed. Now Russia has no forces that would be able to get the country back to the democratic rails.

- In the documental “Crimea. Way home” Putin admits that he was personally responsible for the special operation to seize Crimea, by this basically signing the confession to military crimes. What for? Is Putin so sure that he will escape punishment?

- The film demonstrates exactly that. If Kremlin might have its doubts re Donbas, then possible concessions to Russia in Lugansk and Donetsk are considered to be an argument for keeping Crimea as a part of Russia’s. Of course, the whole world doesn’t recognize Crimea’s annexation, but kremlin hopes that blackmailing, concessions, and trading will permit to retain Crimea.

Now Kremlin doesn’t have to hide the fact that the Russian army is fighting in Donbas in order to postpone the diplomatic solution of the conflict. Crimea didn’t become the first and foremost issue in resolution of Russia-Ukraine conflict; now cessation of war in Donbas is the first thing to do.

- The film contains a lot of secret messages addressed to the civilized world, such as confession about the readiness to use nuclear power unless the situation in Crimea goes in accordance with the favorable scenario. When the Russian world is being built the end justifies the means, doesn’t it?

- From time to time the world has to be reminded about the apocalyptic scenarios, so that it doesn’t lose vigilance and control over the nuclear weapons, dictatorial regimes, and the weapon of mass destruction. Even in a nuclear war Russia has no chances to win: if it uses nuclear power it will merely be destroyed. Putin is well aware of that, which doesn’t prevent him from blackmailing the world with the nuclear weapons, likewise Northern Korea.

However, there is huge difference between blackmailing and its realization: taking the decision to use nuclear weapons, Russia will sign itself a death sentence. This decision is a suicide for Russia.

- Putin told about the seizure and outflow of Viktor Yanukovich, who fled from Ukraine’s territory. Many experts noticed a sign that Russia is ready to abduct not only presidents and not only in Ukraine. Does it mean that Russia is ready to switch to terror at the state level?

- I believe so. This is one more threat that comes from Kremlin – demonstration that Russian intelligent services are ready to make all the dirty work in the world. Russian intelligent services used to be the most powerful secret organizations of the 20^th century, whose forces weakened towards the end of the 20^th century.

However, KGB renamed to FSB has quite quickly restored its power and control over the financial streams and took control over the outflow of capital. Having astronomical resources, branched secret-service network, and implementers, Kremlin get the opportunity to blackmail world politicians with the threat to remove any politician, whatever post he takes in any place of the world.

All the more that Kremlin is not alone in its aspirations to spy upon the world leaders and control them. We still remember the scandal related to the wiretapping of European leaders, the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel by the American intelligent services in particular.

Blackmailing is a sign of weakness, and to subdue to blackmailing is an even bigger weakness.

- Crimea is occupied. Neither the West nor Ukraine gave adequate reaction to aggression. Now Donbas is being seized. Experts are sure that Kremlin won’t stop with Donbas or even Ukraine – there are too many territories around now it can spread “Russian World” to. What place in building the “Russian World” is given to Belarus?

- Belarus and a number of Kazakh territories with a high concentration of Russian-speaking population are first and foremost objects of Russian aggression and expansionist plans.

Presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan have seen and see such threat and are trying to oppose it to the best of their ability. The minuses of any integration initiatives that Lukashenka and Nazarbaev are constantly pointing out at are the consequences of such threat, an attempt to postpone or delay the realization of Kremlin’s expansionist plans.

It is no wonder that many integration initiatives are proposed by Belarus’ and Kazakhstan’s leaders, who are trying to forestall the expansionist Kremlin plans by their own integration initiatives.

The recent statement about introduction of Russian ruble or common currency made by the Chairman of the Council of the Republic Miasnikovich seems symptomatic: in today’s situation it is an absolutely unprofitable initiative that can also be viewed as a reaction of politician to the threat of expansion and that looks as an attempt to win over the aggressor.

How effective is this tactics, whether it allows to preserve sovereignty, territorial unity, is hard to judge. But it is a fact that Belarusan leaders manage to postpone the realization of Kremlin’s imperial plans for many years now.