It is Moscow that urged Luka

Two weeks have passed since the forced landing at the Minsk airport, flying from Athens to Vilnius, of the plane of the Irish airline “Ryanair” with the aim of arresting Roman Protasevich, the former editor-in-chief of the most popular opposition Telegram channel in Belarus “Nexta”. But experts still argue if Luka (this is how they call Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus) made the decision independently or did he do it in coordination with the Kremlin?

Three versions are possible here:

a) The aging dictator has lost his sense of reality and he is ready to sacrifice the economic and political well-being of his country for the sake of arresting Protasevich, in order to show everyone (especially Belarus and neighboring countries) that he will catch anyone.

Theoretically, such a possibility cannot be ruled out, especially if we recall the summer of 1920 against the background of the presidential elections with savage beatings of protesters, Luka's flights in an airplane with his son in a bulletproof vest and with machine guns without shops.

This version seems the least likely. If we remember that in the spring of 1920, Luka was almost a step away from becoming a member of the family of European nations, then at least realizing the dream with which it has been running for so long - the transformation of Belarus into something like the Switzerland of Eastern Europe. In any case, before the Ryanair incident, Belarus was, of course, an authoritarian, but moderately authoritarian country.  

Suddenly, overnight, a passionate desire to imprison Protasevich led to the fact that the planes no longer fly over Belarus. Moreover, Minsk, which was an extremely convenient hub for flights to many countries of the world, has now lost this quality. Now airplanes do not fly over the territory of Belarus. And Western countries threaten with all conceivable and inconceivable sanctions.

b) As already mentioned, Luka's decision to land a foreign plane just to arrest Protasevich looks completely absurd. But this is only at first glance. If we assume that this is the handiwork of Moscow, then it acquires a rational meaning.

Moscow has long wanted to take control of Belarus, where there are strategic military facilities, a nuclear power plant, which was actually built by Russia, a strategic gas pipeline and much more ...

After all, it is no coincidence that since 1996 Russia has been pushing Belarus to create a Union State (the corresponding agreement was concluded on December 8, 1999, and ratified on January 26, 2000 by the parliaments of the two countries), which became the legal and political basis for the further absorption of Belarus by Russia. To prevent this, Luka all this time showed miracles of resourcefulness.

Obviously, for this reason, the Kremlin decided to help Luka so that he finds himself in an even more burdened relationship with the West. It should be noted here that the arrest of Protasevich could hardly be possible without the participation of the Russian secret services in this operation.

According to the former intelligence officer who wished to remain anonymous, the Belarusian KGB is very good when it is necessary to suppress the opposition, to seize, arrest, but is not able to conduct external operations. Such a level of creativity as forcing an airplane to land is not available to the Belarusian KGB, only Russians could come up with this. At least they consulted Belarusians.

Therefore, there is no reason to doubt that Moscow pushed Luka to such actions (air piracy) in order to subjugate him as the head of a sovereign state, and gradually crush Belarus under itself - the fact that the Belarusian regime appears in an increasingly psychopathic and grotesque guise, only contributes to this.

Luka claims that the passenger plane headed for Minsk because the pilot received an e-mail from Switzerland stating that the plane was mined. In addition, it is already known that, firstly, the e-mail arrived later than the plane changed its route. Secondly, Switzerland immediately stated that it did not have and did not transmit any information about the mining of the aircraft. Who sent the email remains a mystery. At the same time, in order to force the Irish plane to change its route, the Belarusian Air Force raised a MiG-29 fighter and a Mi-24 helicopter. Luka explains this by the fact that the Belarusian nuclear power plant is located in the flight area. “Near it the plane turned around. But if suddenly? Is not Chernobyl enough for us? How would the United States react in such a situation?" - asks Luka in a video published by the “Pul Pervogo” telegram channel. (https://t.me/s/pul_1)

However, hardly anyone will believe Luka's version.

Did Luka foresee the consequences of this step and the economic losses from future sanctions? It can be argued with a high degree of certainty that yes. It is also obvious that he coordinated it with Russia, which will cover all losses.

d) There is also a third version. It belongs to the famous Russian journalist Maxim Shevchenko.

https://echo.msk.ru/blog/shevchenkomax/2844034-echo/

In his opinion, the United States is not interested in cooperation between Europe and Russia.

"For many years the United States has been doing everything to prevent the Russian Federation from becoming a raw material and energy appendage of the European Union, which will allow the European Union, led by Germany, first of all, and, perhaps, with France, to some extent, to emancipate itself from the Euro-Atlantic Economic Partnership", Shevchenko believes.

As for the Belarusian regime, according to the journalist, it compromises Russian politics, shifts Russian political opinion and the political public field of Russia towards wild authoritarianism, is a serious obstacle that interferes with Russia's relations with Western Europe, preventing them from creating a single economic system.

“Despite the patriotism and Eurasianism, such behavior of Lukashenko greatly harms the rapprochement of the European Union with the Russian Federation. Because between the Russian Federation and Germany, for example, the European Union, Poland there is such a Belarus, for which Russia is constantly responsible, because it is a union state, because it is the CSTO, and which does things in the person of its leader that shock the EU space, his peoples and his countries,” Shevchenko says.

In particular, it is clear that at the meeting between President Putin and the President of the United States,  to be held on June 16,  what the Belarusian president has done will be discussed. The next question is: either Putin, conditionally, will bring Lukashenko's head to Biden ...  On the other hand, why should Biden liquidate Belarus, which is now playing its role, that is, does not allow getting closer and creating a unified economic system of Russia and Europe. The Americans, on the contrary, find it beneficial to support Lukashenko so that he stay in power as long as possible and no one can do anything with him.

The first version is not accepted. During his presidency, Luca has shown himself as a very pragmatic, skillful and experienced politician. He managed to maneuver between Russia and the West, all the time, benefiting from everywhere. When the annexation of Crimea took place, Luka acted as an intermediary between Europe, Ukraine and Russia (he never recognized the change in Russia's borders).

The latest version looks too conspiratorial and therefore the least likely. How will the West react to Luka's demarche? There is no doubt that the European Parliament will meet and adopt a tough resolution (the resolutions adopted after the poisoning of Navalny are still fresh in our memory). Of course, the West has the ability to create the right incentives for countries like Belarus.

Sanctions have already been announced against Belarus. So far, these are sanctions against the aviation industry of Belarus - aircraft of foreign airlines will stop flying over Belarus. But, the question is - how long?

As for the seizure of some assets, nothing like this has happened for a long time; or they have been hidden so securely that no one can reach. The entry ban for officials has already been introduced.

The main danger for Belarus is stronger sanctions, when the West will stop buying fertilizers and oil products that Belarus exports. This will seriously hit the Belarusian economy and budget. On the other hand, financial sanctions will be introduced against the largest Belarusian enterprises and the Belarusian elite, thereby limiting their ability to work not only with European banks, but also with banks that use dollars and euros.

Due to its geopolitical interests, Europe cannot refuse humanitarian contacts, since this is a pretext for maintaining at least some kind of communication channels. It does not want Belarus to rush into the arms of Russia.

Europe thinks about the future, for them it is extremely important. They do not want this to be a pretext for worsening relations with Russia. One should not forget about Nord Stream either. It must be finished.

This is a present from US President Joe Biden to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the talks to be held in mid-June. Why is this done? In return, the United States is counting on some concessions from the Russian Federation. For example, regarding oil prices, the nuclear deal with Iran.

The White House gave permission to proceed apparently because German Prime Minister Angela Merkel convinced the American administration that Nord Stream would never be used for political purposes in any way. There will be no energy blackmail, which Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland fear.

In a word, Western countries proceed from their national and group interests. The fate of the Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich is not among their national priorities. If there is no very strong lobbying of the United States on the part of public organizations, on the part of the journalists themselves ... If the reaction turns out to be weak, there is no public pressure on the governments; they will not be too fidgety.

***

Moscow believes that Luka is now driven into a corner. Then he will have no choice but to tearfully rush into the brotherly, stifling embrace of the Kremlin. However, this is unlikely ...

Luka is confident that he will stay in power longer than Putin and deal with the new Russian leadership. Otherwise, why does he need all this?

Shafayat Salah (Saleh Bayat)