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Bohdan Yaremenko: Lukashenka regime to collapse

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Bohdan Yaremenko: Lukashenka regime to collapse

The president of Ukraine is warned that there's no sense in staking on Lukashenka.

Bohdan Yaremenko, the head of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs Foundation, wrote it on his Facebook page. Below is the full text of his post:

– Belarus for Ukraine's foreign policy is the same as Lenin monuments for most people of Ukraine. It's hard to get rid of these monuments – the dismantling procedure is violated, they may be cultural objects, the dismantling may hurt feelings of religious people (sorry, of Lenin supporters). It doesn't matter that the legal basis to dismantle them is older than the monuments, that the dubious cultural significance cannot be compared to political losses from the out-of-date advertising campaign of the communist party and that the monuments, perhaps, hurt feelings of many people rather than warm their hearts. They have existed and they exist now. It's hard to say good bye to them. It's Soviet mentality.

It's the same with Belarus. The neigbouring fraternal state that has some feelings towards us – this is how they try to explain to us the current relations between Ukraine and Belarus.

Aha. It is Russia's military ally that does not recognise the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Its president and parliament that cannot be recognised legitimate according to any democratic standards. It is the country that persecutes dissidents regardless of their citizenship and finds Ukrainian citizens to be an easy target. It turns out that Ukraine's foreign policy can easily ignore it. But for what purpose?

Yes, our foreign policy should be pragmatic. As I understand it, we should not ban the import of, for example, Belarusian milk because Belarus is not democratic. Or things like that.

A democratic state ruled by law cannot afford the foreign policy that is not based on values. This is nonsense.

Except for Yanukovych (who seems to despise Lukashenka, and it was a mutual feeling), our presidents – both Yushchenko and Poroshenko – have some unexplained feelings towards him, a crafty straightforward bluff farmer they know from childhood. Why cannot he be a character worth of admiration and adoration?

So, they apologise for not attending the CIS summit, ask him to protect Ukraine at the summit (it's like asking Putin to defend Ukraine's interests), agree on Minsk's peacekeeping initiatives. This is a surrealistic foreign policy.

I even imagine Lukashenka whispering to Poroshenko: “Why on earth do you need Lipetsk, buddy? Move the factory to Belarus. I have better people. I will give you better conditions. We don't have borders with Russia, so you can send them as many chocolates as you want, and they won't do anything because these will be Belarusian chocolates.” An so on.

If I were Lukashenka, I would definitely tell Poroshenko something like that.

If Lukashenka said it, I have the impression that Poroshenko would agree, but the president of Ukraine must decline the offer.

He should not be guided by far and unreachable principles and mix personal and state interests. One cannot deal with dictators. There are no more unstable systems that dictatorships. They fall down as fast as candies scatter from the bag. Or will fall down. It is unclear what will be the first to collapse – the Belarusian economy that leads to a deadlock (social guarantees backed by foreign loans) or Lukashenka's power. The most likely variant is that they collapse simultaneously.

Our foreign policy towards Belarus should be based on the understanding of this simple fact.

But it should be a policy rather than shameless flirting or a game “who deceives whom”.

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