Russian expert: Belarusian opposition should not count on Western cookies

Sergei Mikheyev said: “It seems to me that on the whole the West has abandoned Belarusian opposition. The West now understands that nothing will be accomplished in Belarus fast. The West saw Russia's rather clear stance. Taking into account the unpleasant experience of Crimea and Donbass for the West, the West will not pursue the same policy with regard to Belarus. On the one hand, the West supports protests in Belarus but nobody would come out and hand out cookies like they did in Ukraine. Western ambassadors didn't dare do it because the situation in Belarus is different. It seems to me that on the whole the West demonstrates that the Belarusian opposition will not receive the kind of support that it apparently hoped for.”

Speaking about appeals of the Belarusian opposition to cripple the country's economy, the expert noted that nothing will come out of it except for lower living standards of ordinary Belarusians. “In truth the opposition wants to deprive people of revenues, of salaries in order to radicalize them and encourage them to participate in street protests. The opposition wants people to have nothing to eat in order to use the people to try and grab power once again,” he pointed out.

Sergei Mikheyev reminded about the course of events in Ukraine prior to the maidan revolution. “Radicalization happened when protests started dwindling. The Ukrainian maidan revolution began in November 2013 but it was really weak by January 2014 already,” he noted. “Then radicalization began. In my opinion, it was provoked. It seems to me that those, who organized the maidan, saw that they would accomplish nothing without sacrifices, without bloodshed. Can the same thing happen in Belarus? Unfortunately, it can. But I strongly hope that it will not, that there will be ways to avoid some radical scenarios. But you have to understand that those, who masterminded the street protests, certainly want them to keep going strong. Fire can be lit only by one method: victims, provocations, terrorist attacks, god forbid.”