Have Russia and Belarus Reached an Integration Breakthrough?

Sergiu CEBAN

Moscow is trying to create another platform to stimulate integration processes in the post-Soviet space. If the Russian-Belarusian union is successful, most countries in the region may be invited to join– including Moldova, for which the idea of participating in the Union State is far from new.

Last week, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State, during which they approved 28 union programs to deepen integration, as well as the military doctrine and the concept of migration policy. This package of documents is expected to become the starting point for regulatory unification in the field of economy, monetary and currency policy, as well as tax and customs regulation. It is not the first year that Moscow and Minsk have declared their willingness to develop the process of mutual integration, the foundations of which were laid back in the second half of the 1990s. However, the negotiations on the Union State creation have gone on long enough, so that many have already stopped believing in their logical conclusion. It is known that the Belarusian leadership has always reacted very nervously to any talk about the political component of rapprochement with Russia, which sometimes take the most original forms. Last year, it even came to mentioning a possible “intervention” by Russia on the eve of the presidential election. However, the events that followed somewhat changed the attitude of the Belarusian leadership to the integration project. In general, the results of the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State can be called a new milestone in the development of bilateral relations between Moscow and Minsk. Nevertheless, it is still too early to say how quickly and under what political conditions the parties will begin the practical implementation of the signed agreements. There are still many difficult issues unresolved in Russian-Belarusian relations, which have repeatedly forced these countries to take a long pause. Therefore, it is quite likely that the November agreements will remain only on paper. Indirect confirmation is the words of the Chairman of the Russian Government, who stated that an even more serious stage awaits the parties –everything signed is to be implemented, including at the legislative level. To that end, more than four hundred acts and bilateral agreements must be adopted. It is such a large-scale task that the governments of the two countries will have to solve in order to dispel the doubts of many experts who admit the idea that the next surge in activity at the “union construction project” is just a political trick necessary for both Moscow and Minsk. The most unexpected episode of the Supreme State Council meeting was the mention of Crimea, which immensely resonated in the press. Alexander Lukashenko suddenly decided to complain about the fact that the Russian president didn’t fulfil his promise to take him with him to the peninsula. This political breakdown has generated various interpretations, starting with the fact that the Belarusian leader is finally ready to recognize Crimea as Russian, and ending with the fact that Minsk is once again trying to “sell” its official position on the peninsula to Moscow for repayment of possible financial costs from the rupture of relations with Kiev. Certainly, the discourse that Belarus is on the path of complete loss of sovereignty and that it will in fact become one of the subjects of the Russian Federation within a few years is greatly exaggerated. So far, only one thing is absolutely clear: Minsk will continue moving exclusively in the wake of Russia’s foreign and defense policy, despite the fact that just recently Belarusian diplomacy tried to balance between Russian and Chinese vectors, as well as flirt with the European Union and the United States until the very last. The agreement on a common military doctrine will seriously affect the regional balance of forces, especially after the expected increase in the Russian military presence on Belarusian territory. Once the plan for military cooperation until 2024 is approved, it is planned to prepare an appropriate program of the Union State until 2026, one of the priority areas of which will be the development of a unified regional grouping of forces, as well as integrated military systems. In case these intentions are successfully implemented, our Ukrainian neighbors will inevitably end up in the “strategic horseshoe”, which militarily will encircle most of Ukraine’s territory from the north, east and south of the sea. The advisers of the Russian leader, of course, tried to fill the event with the necessary array of symbols. This is both the date of the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State (November 4 is the Day of National Unity in Russia), and Vladimir Putin going live from Sevastopol, which is hardly directly related to the Crimean issue as such but is just designed to highlight more significant fundamental markers. For example, the baptism of Rus’ (Chersonese) and the next historical civilizational choice the Kremlin is facing while masterminding the “gathering of the lands”. Moreover, one of the important factors that accelerated Moscow and Minsk’s decision-making were the internal political processes in both countries. During the meeting, Lukashenko said that Belarus will hold a referendum to adopt amendments to the constitution in February 2022. This political maneuver will apparently enable the Belarusian leader to take up a certain official function within the framework of the Union mechanisms and maintain influence on the political processes in his country. The completion of the presidential mandate of the Russian leader, expected by 2024, also requires new “crucial landmark” decisions that will have a favorable impact on the personal rating of the president, but at the same time expand the room for a smooth transit of power in the Kremlin, with the possibility for Vladimir Putin to remain on the Moscow political Olympus. Despite the skeptical assessments of the Russia-Belarus new “integration breakthrough”, these processes, however, should not be belittled. As part of a long strategic planning, Moscow is trying to create another platform to stimulate integration processes, and if the Russian-Belarusian union proves to be a success, most countries of the post-Soviet region, including Moldova, will be invited to decide on their strategic choice.