Lukashenka’s regime provokes U.S. to impose international sanctions

“Closed discussion in the Belarusian “parliament” on air defence system building in Venezuela is in the line of war with the U.S. Someone is drawing anti-American line and trying to include a military component into there. It is apparently made for the U.S. to take Lukashenka’s regime seriously and to demand imposing of international sanctions,” Andrei Sannikov, international coordinator of Charter’97, thinks.

It should be reminded that a contract between Belarus and Venezuela on assistance in air defence system building was ratified at the closed session of the ”house of representatives” on 9 April.

“The closed “parliamentary” session looks like a performance, because, firstly, such a decision can’t be taken in the “house of representatives.” Secondly, according to the recent information of official media, Belarus trades in arms with 50 countries. Not only in arms, but in military technologies, and then all of a sudden a closed session on Venezuela is held,” Andrei Sannikov notes.

As Andrei Sannikov, member of the organising committee of the “European Belarus” campaign, thinks, Belarusian deputy foreign minister Viktar Haisyanok’s visit to Syria is in the line of the war with the U.S.

“A visit of deputy minister of foreign affairs to Syria followed this logic. As it is known, democratic states regard Syria as an instability factor on the Middle East, so relations with these states are built taking into consideration this reputation. It’s not the first time when Belarus demonstrates its incomprehensible closeness to Syrian policy and readiness to discuss and solve issues on military and technical cooperation between these countries. It doesn’t make benefits for Belarus. It is an extremely dangerous policy that will hardly be able to keep Belarusian economy stable.

In general, one has an impression that the official Minsk would like to prove something to someone and use rouge states to strengthen its prestige, but it takes the opposite way. Venezuela and Syria are most likely to take advantage of the Belarusian authorities, as if they stressed that Europe also has its point of instability. Unfortunately for us, this instability point is Belarus,” the diplomat noted.