Ulad Vialichka: We got to the point when Belarus has to decide whose side does it take

The West can contrast Russian aggression to yet another level of sanctions that consolidates Russian society that is drunk with revanchism, around today’s authorities.

However, some countries of the Western world might provide military and technical assistance to Russia.

Russian army invaded Ukraine – during the last days it became obvious to the whole civilized world, except for the Russia itself. While NATO states that a thousand Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine, the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia has absolutely different statistics, which says that 15 thousand of Russian soldiers are fighting against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko cancelled his visit to Turkey and urgently summoned a meeting of the Council for National Security and Defense. The official Kiev called on his European partners to summon the emergency meeting of the Council of the EU.

The emergency meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Committee is to take place in the headquarters of the NATO.

Russian aggression enforced the world to look for an adequate answer to Kremlin’s military actions. What can the West oppose to the Russia’s military intervention?

Ulad Vialichka, the head of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, answers the questions of the “EuroBelarus” Information Service.

- Russian army invaded Ukraine’s territory. This fact was stated by Ukraine, the USA, the EU, the UN – by everyone except for Russia, which doesn’t notice its own intervention. Is it a war?

- Obviously – this is a war. It is now almost impossible to hide the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The events of the last few days demonstrated that regular army of the Russian Federation is fighting at the Ukrainian territory, and there is more than enough evidence of that. This is a military conflict.

However, there is not enough information to assess the scale of this confrontation and answer with absolute certainty whether this is a large-scale or a local conflict.

- Why did the intervention happen right after the Minsk Summit?

- It’s hard to say what are the reasons of the intervention that happened right after the tripartite negotiations in Minsk. It seems that the Minsk summit became the starting point, and before it no radical change of the situation was possible – otherwise Minsk negotiations wouldn’t take place at all.

As certain escalation was taking place on the threshold of the negotiations as well, though it wasn’t as intense and large-scale. I agree with numerous experts who say that in Minsk the players were trying to see who is capable of what, and the results of it served as one of the factors that defined further Kremlin’s behavior towards Ukraine.

However, we don’t have enough information to speak with absolute certainty. We are dealing with a military situation, when parties are not openly declaring their goals.

- Which goal does Kremlin pursue? It looks like Moscow is trying to implement Crimean scenario in Ukraine.

- It’s hard for me to judge whether Kremlin’s goals covers all Ukraine or it is only local destabilization. Judging from the current situation, I think that the Russian management can’t set the goal of changing the political rule of our southern neighbor or of seizing the whole country. For several months we see that Russia’s aggression doesn’t weaken Ukraine; quite the contrary, it stimulates real consolidation of the Ukrainian society, authorities, elites, and strengthens Ukraine as a national state.

I tend to agree with the already voiced opinion that Kremlin is rather intended to implement a new version of Transdniestrian scenario – to create an enclave at the Ukrainian territory that would be subject to Russia and will be weakening Ukraine in the long-time perspective.

- What the West can oppose to the Russian intervention, except for the attempts to fight with the Russian army with loud statements?

- Now we can expect two types of behaviour.

The West can introduce a regular level of sanctions. However, any sanctions are too weak and cannot stop the Russian authorities. Quite the opposite, Kremlin can use the sanctions for the further consolidation of the Russian society against the whole world.

Another scenario that might be expected from certain European countries and countries-members of NATO is the real military and technical support of Ukraine. Countries-members of the NATO are unlikely to be drawn into the military conflict directly; however, some countries might provide military and technical assistance to Ukraine.

- Does it mean that the world is finally ready to understand that to the Russian force it should respond with even more force?

- For now I don’t see any other way to stop Russia’s cynical actions in Ukraine. However sad it is to understand, but only successful and quite quick end of the anti-terror operation together with the adequate confrontation to the Russian aggression at the east of the country can become a real and acceptable way-out for the Ukrainian society. But it will inevitably lead to new victims, which is a tragedy per se.

At the same time, the presence of the World War III is felt in the air, and the world has to take this into account. Any careless action can lead to the escalation of the conflict from the local to the regional or even global. That is why now as never before all the parties will be assessing the risks very carefully.

I am also very concerned with how the Russian intervention will affect the Belarusan politics. We got to the point when Belarus has to decide, whose side does it take. Russia might need to make Belarus directly participate in the military conflict.

- How big is this threat?

- The risk has grown; and taking into account that Belarus is tied with Russia by the military and political obligations, the question appears: will Belarus be able to avoid being drawn into this conflict; will it have enough power and political will for that? For now the situation looks like all decisions and actions that are developing this aggression are taken outside Belarus, which means that we are somewhat going with the flow and are dependent.