[Lukasz]

Eastern European ping list

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[Just mythoughts]

Putin calls this 'energy security', economic blackmail.

[mainepatsfan]

I'm sure the UN can mediate this situation. /major sarcasm

[Cheburashka]

Putin's dream was to reunify Russia, Ukraine, Belarus (and perhaps other "former" republics as opportunities would arise) as a greater non-communist "Soviet" Union. This didn't work out, so he's extracting as much money as possible from Russia's oil and natural gas resources.

Lukashenko was hoping to be Putin's successor as President of that hypothetical union and to apply the methods of rule in it that he uses in Belarus. He's not going to get his wish either.

So now neither of them has a use for the other. It's not surprising that they have a falling out.

Perhaps Putin will now have an interest in solving the "Lukashenko problem". We will see.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Aren't Belorussian and Russian relations still very close?

[Thunder90]

Could be that they are trying to distract us from Russia's dabbling with Iran and North Korea...

[G8 Diplomat]

The Kremlin, increasingly impatient about subsidizing Belarus' Soviet-style economy with cheap gas, has since proposed that Belarus be absorbed into Russia.

Here we go again. 1917 all over again. It's Russia's subtle move to get the Soviet Union back together, maybe?

And it's BELORUSSIAN, not "Belarusian". I think I've said that a thousand times on FR :)

[Pro-Bush]

This is good news - Democracy is taking a foothold. Russia looks like a bully. ..No surprise.

[Centurion2000]

Lukashenko, who has vehemently opposed such a union, reiterated his stance during a 4 1/2-hour news conference Friday. "Even (Soviet dictator Josef) Stalin didn't go as far as that ... I don't want to be the first and the last Belarusian president," he said.

Lukashenko is already President for life in his small pond ... of course he doesn't want to give up his power.