Alyaksandr Lukashenka doesn’t want to have his country absorbed by Russia because that would cost him and no family their power and perhaps even more, says commentator Roman Popkov. But a far greater obstacle to an Anschluss like Crimea is “the lack of desire of the broad masses of the Belarusian people” to give up the independent state they have lived in.
“Not all of these supporters of a sovereign Belarus are convinced members of the opposition,” the Russian opposition commentator says. “Not all of them consider the white-red-white flag as their own. But the overwhelming majority of Belarusians, while viewing the Russians as ‘our own’ and as ‘brothers,’ do not want to become Russians.”