Belarus 'does not need' Russia air base - Lukashenko

[uhnope]

Source: BBC

Belarus does not need a Russian air base, President Alexander Lukashenko has said, despite growing pressure from Moscow to establish such a facility. He said the issue was never discussed with Russia, although last month President Vladimir Putin ordered his government to fine-tune a deal.

On Sunday, hundreds of Belarusian activists held a protest rally in the capital Minsk against the Russian plan. Belarus is Russia's key ally, and is a member of a Moscow-led economic union.

"We don't need a base today," Mr Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Belarusian media on Tuesday. "I hear shrieks from the opposition about the deployment of a Russian air base. I don't know anything about it.

"We need planes - not bases. We have our excellent pilots... Why should I allow in planes and pilots from other countries?"

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34463901

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Putin might have to make him an offer he can't refuse

[Duckhunter935]

1. I hope they avoid it

Russia used their leased bases to invade and occupy Ukrainian Crimea.

[Monk06]

2. That would just be a tit for tat poke in the eye of NATO. Not in the interests of Belarus to get

pulled into that game

[DetlefK]

3. That's not (exclusively) about NATO. Putin wants to build a Soviet Union-style russian empire.

Putin is trying to build an economic union similar to the EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union

Russia, Kazahstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia. All former members of the Soviet Union, which makes them, according to the modern russian reading of eurasian history, members of a Russia-dominated geopolitical influence-zone. (Remember what happened when Ukraine tried to no longer be a russian vassal?)



The Wikipedia-article says that the EEC is on the way to a currency-union like the Eurozone. That's weird. I remember that the other member-states had balked at this idea because their common currency would in practice be controlled by Russia.

[Sunlei]

4. Don't let Putin get a toe in the door, he will never leave.

[Dianaf]

5. Parliamentary eyewash in Byelorussia.

There were parliamentary elections in Byelorussia in mid-September and there were international observers to monitor "democracy in action"
https://www.quora.com/Do-Belarussians-actually-support-Lukashenko/answer/Harry-Bates-4?prompt_topic_bio=1
There were many wrong totally undemocratic things and several voting stations were closed. When my sister Masha came to the polling station in Minsk they declared to her that she had already voted and she had just to go away! I guess there were many such cases during those elections. Unfortunately, they haven't been mentioned in EU mass media. Why, I wonder?

[uhnope]

6. wow. excellent first post.

Did you hear about the recent so-called elections in Russia? A BBC reporter was at a polling place when a troop of soldiers was marched in and told, audibly, who to vote for.