American political scientist names date of Russia’s collapse

The fate of Belarus and Russia is being decided in Ukraine.

The head of the American Stratfor research center George Friedman spoke of that in the course of the discussion at the global security conference GLOBSEC 2014 in Bratislava. The American political scientist, among other points, claimed that Belarus will become one of the nearest arenas of the “small cold war” between Russia and the West. He also repeated the prediction from his book “The next 100 years”, claiming that Russia will disintegrate in 2020-ies, Radio Svaboda reports.

“Aliaksandr Lukashenka will not last long in the current conditions, if there is a pro-western government in Ukraine”, - this is how the head of the American Stratfor research center George Friedman answered the question on what Russia’s steps toward Belarus he predicted.

At the same time the American researcher does not consider such an option possible in the nearest years. In his opinion, Russia will do everything possible in order not to let Belarus and Ukraine go under western influence.

“Now Russia does not need to do much, since they already have Belarus, but from Belarus they may project the use of force against Poland and other neighbors, if it allowed. This is an important element of the Russian strategy. All the attempts to topple Lukashenka failed, that is why this is not a problem to them. The best protection for Belarus now is Ukraine”, - he says.