Margelov: Friendship with Undemocratic Rulers Cause Damage to Russia :: Charter'97 :: News

Friendship with undemocratic rulers cannot be strong and is not doing anything to Russia damage to its reputation, stated the head of Russia’s Federation Council`s Foreign Affairs Committee Mikhail Margelov, commenting on customs row between Russia and Belarus.

The senator reminded that Russian-Belarusian conflict was escalated right after Russia announced price hike for gas. “Cheap natural gas for Belarus is an obvious double standard, but as soon as this practice was stopped, Minsk announced a trade war on Moscow,” Margelov said. “There is no use to speak about methods used by Belarusian leadership which is hardly aware of market relations. Customs duty imposed on transit commodities, especially from pumped oil, hadn’t been applied since the feudal system’s atomism in Europe”.

As said by Margelov, it is a custom with antidemocratic regimes like the current Belarusian one to be “one-way” friends, and exploit their friends in order to reinforce their power. “It is even less advantageous to enter into alliances with them, and not with the people of the countries where happen to have power,” the senator emphasized. “Recent trade dispute between Russia and Belarus is just a new substantiation to this rule”.