In recent years, if it were not for the crazy death of Ukraine, I am afraid that It would be Belarus.
A little attention to international news will show that Belarus is not at all inferior to Ukraine in terms of weirdness.
In the 2020 White Russian election, in order to please Europe, Lukashenko suddenly accused Russia of interfering in the election, and also arrested Russian mercenaries in a high profile, and then, the old Lu crushed the competitors with 80% support, and the people of the whole country felt that their IQ was insulted, hundreds of thousands of people went to the streets to ask for an explanation, the witty old Lu urgently hugged Putin's thigh, which barely survived the large social death scene, and then turned face with the West, and also netted the European and American special forces.
In 2021, Lao Lu completely let go of himself, actually hijacked the plane in the name of the government, "by the way" arrested disobedient reporters, and once again appeared on the global hot search list. In the face of EU sanctions and pressure, the old Lu opened his mind, provided free one-stop smuggling services for refugees in the Middle East, and organized thousands of people on the polish border in less than a month, which made the EU very afraid.
In the fierce confrontation between the old Lu and the European Union, Belarus inevitably moved closer to Russia and regained its identity as a buffer state, although it was not lucky, but it was much better than that of Ukraine next to it.
In this issue, let's talk about Belarus, a small young Slavic country that is on the road to buffer zone.
Belarus is a typical landlocked country, with an area of only 200,000 square kilometers, similar to our Shaanxi Province, with a population of about 10 million, less than a city of Xi'an. It is bordered by Latvia and Lithuania to the north, Ukraine to the south, and Russia and Poland to the east and west, respectively, and it can be said that Belarus is perfectly stuck in the middle of Europe and Russia, which is doomed to the fate of the white Russian buffer state.
The whole territory of Belarus is dominated by plains, almost no danger to defend, once occupied by powerful countries, the neighbors next to it will be threatened, because of the inability to do martial arts, White Russia has been a down-to-earth little brother, successively ruled by Mongolia, the Principality of Lithuania, Poland and Tsarist Russia, and later occupied by Germany twice. For hundreds of years, it was only an integral part of the rise and fall of regional powers.
The long passive career has also caused Belarus to suffer from severe dependence on power, so that after independence, it is still inseparable from the care of the eldest brother.
Belarus has no national history, it and Russia and Ukraine are derived from the Kievan Rus' Principality established by the East Slavic people, and they all believe in Orthodoxy.
In the 12th-13th centuries, Kievan Rus was wiped out by the Mongols and gradually evolved into three branches of the East Slavic peoples of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Under the rule of the Mongols, a large number of Ukrainian and Russian Slavs and Mongols were mixed, so today's Russians and Ukrainians have Mongolian genes and perverted obsessions with territory in their bones; while Belarus obviously has reproductive cleanliness, they did not intermarry with the Mongols, and finally preserved the purity of the Slavs, that "white", in fact, the meaning of "pure".
When the Mongols ran back to the steppes, most of Belarus fell into the hands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, until 1795, when Russia took Austria-Hungary and Prussia to divide Poland for the third time, Poland was destroyed, and Belarus was all incorporated into the territory of the Russians.
In general, the Russians were very experienced in disciplining White Russia, not only banning the Language and Books of White Russia, but also converting to Orthodox Christianity according to Catholic Belarusians. Today, more than half of Belarusians are Orthodox Christians, catholics account for only 7.1 percent, and while the majority of people claim to be belarusian speakers, more than 70 percent speak Russian in private.
When the Crimean incident broke out in 2014, the People of Belarus broke out in a cold sweat, and in order to show the independence of the country, Lukashenko spoke Belarusian.
Since the Russians conquered this land by force, the buffer zone attributes of Belarus began to appear, first with the emperor, and later replaced by a mustache, and one of the main routes of their invasion of Russia was to attack Moscow from Belarus, after Minsk, and then all the way east to moscow.
As I mentioned in the previous video "Why Russia Can't Stop Expanding", because the west of Moscow is a horse and a flat river, there is no danger to defend, so once Russia is strong, it will drive the press all the way to the west, but for more than 300 years, Russia has been dead on the western front and in the European countries, but there is not much strategic depth, but the non-governmental organizations ran to Siberia to fight in the wilderness, easily destroyed several small khanates in the primitive state, and actually laid down more than 13 million square kilometers of territory.
Therefore, White Russia is very important to Russia, it is like the autumn pants in winter, without which Moscow can only shiver in the cold wind.
After the October Revolution in Russia, White Russia was also in chaos, and the Germans took the opportunity to occupy Minsk and establish the pro-German and short-lived Belarusian People's Republic, but soon the iron fist of the loving father was struck, and White Russia joined the Soviet family on December 30, 1922, becoming one of the four founding members of the Red Empire.
During World War II, White Russia was beaten to pieces by Germany, and the entire country lost about 1.6 million civilians and 600,000 soldiers, accounting for about 1/4 of the total population, and Jews were almost killed. 85% of the buildings and streets of the capital Minsk were destroyed in the bombing, and today Minsk was largely rebuilt after the 1950s.
After World War II, due to the expansion of soviet power into Central Europe, Belarus also lost its status as a buffer state for a time, and gradually became an important industrial base of the Soviet Union, specializing in mechanical manufacturing and metallurgical processing, and was also known as the "general equipment workshop" of the Soviet Union. Today, tractors are still an important product of Belarusian foreign exchange earnings, so driving a tractor was also one of Lukashenko's methods of treating the new crown.
Soviet-era Belarus, more like a part of Russia, held the Alliance and enjoyed the tilt of the Empire's resources, and this good life lasted for decades until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Belarus did not want to be independent.
After independence, Belarus was in turmoil for three years, and it was not until Lukashenko was elected president of Belarus in 1994 that the domestic turmoil ended.
Lukashenko is a low-profile version of Putin, a political strongman, a loyal guardian of Marxism, who followed the Soviet economic model, free of charge for all in health care and education, and a state-owned economy, most of which worked in state-owned enterprises.
After independence, Belarus once refused to contact Russia, after all, just separated, it is reasonable that they can not stick together immediately, Lukashenko's idea at that time was very explicit, that is, he threw himself into the arms of European and American countries without hesitation, anyway, he was a little brother everywhere, so why not hug a thicker thigh?
Moreover, Russia at that time, under the leadership of Yeltsin, unleashed itself and adopted "shock therapy" economically, almost cutting off the country in one operation. Old Lu was very wise not to follow Russia and thus escaped the fate.
But the problem before us is very obvious, Belarus's industry is heavily dependent on Russia's energy support, and the technology of oil raw materials and equipment has reached a terrifying 80%. After the separation, Belarus needed to buy resources from Russia at market prices, which was a very big blow to belarus, and gdp shrank year after year, and by 1995, the size of Belarus's economy had shrunk by 21.6% compared with four years ago.
In addition, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, The status of Belarus as a buffer state became important again, just like the unfortunate Ukraine, if Belarus joined NATO or the European Union, then Moscow would have to face NATO's artillery, which the Russians could not tolerate.
For Europe, once White Russia is fully overthrown to Russia, Then Lithuania and Latvia will be surrounded by Russia on land, and the Russian front line will also be leveraged against Poland, where anti-Russian sentiment is extremely strong, and then the big men of Europe will not want to sleep peacefully.
The importance of White Russia lies in the fact that the Russian army does not have to face the US troops stationed in Poland, avoiding the risk of gunfire, and Europe is also happy to see a country that is not controlled by Russia, and may even become increasingly pro-European, while also maintaining the greatest physical distance from the Russians.
The elder Lu is well aware of this, and since coming to power in 1994, Lukashenko has relied on the wind and turmoil, wandering between Europe and Russia, and the two ends are slipping to the advantage.
In 1996, Belarus and Russia also signed the Treaty of The Union of Russia and Belarus, and a bunch of other related documents, mainly to prepare for another low-end version of the small Soviet Union. All over Belarus want to ally with Russia, after all, everyone is a Slav, the faith is the same, and the economy can still get the meticulous love of the big brother, why not enjoy it?
But what I didn't expect was that the Russians didn't agree, first of all, the treaty was not binding, in case the old Lu tore up the agreement one day, Russia could not find the clause to evaluate; in addition, Russia was also so poor that they really couldn't afford to pull a handful of poor relatives.
Therefore, in the eyes of the Russians, White Russia only wants to gain benefits, which is simply blackmail against Russia's economy.
This dragged on until 2002, when Putin again proposed the incorporation of Belarus into Russia, and the elder Lu blew up as soon as he heard it, publicly stressing that "Belarus will never become part of another country."
At this time, everyone could see that White Russia was insincere on the issue of merger, and that it was for the sake of white Prostitution Russia.
In recent years, due to the recovery of oil prices, Russia's life is slightly better, the domestic hawks began to fantasize about the glory of the past, hoping to pull the former small partners into the group again, to establish a shrinking version of the small Soviet Union, but if you want other countries to change their minds, it is necessary to show some "sincerity", and Belarus is a very good "demonstration village".
Over the years, Russia has made a bloody contribution, not only providing Belarus with a huge amount of cheap oil and gas, but also providing low-interest loans to Belarus from its already poor fiscal revenue. Russia has helped Belarus achieve 12 consecutive years of rapid economic growth, with an average annual GDP growth rate of more than 8%.
Putin's real money finally impressed Lukashenko, and in February 2019, the elder Lu told the media after ending his visit to Russia: "Our two countries can unite tomorrow." ”
The media present almost dropped their jaws, and just when the reporters thought that the two countries were going to be together, Lao Lu added: "But the people of Russia and Belarus, are you ready?" ”
You must know that in the previous negotiations, the two countries were promoting the process of unity from top to bottom, and now Lao Lu has thrown the pot to the two peoples with a sentence, which is obviously perfunctory Putin.
After listening to this, Putin's heart estimated that ten thousand alpacas had run, but a smile was still forced out of his face, who made Belarus so important to Russia?
As a peasant's son, Lukashenko has forgotten all about the simple virtues, and in the treatment of Russia, he has been fooling the other party to give himself a blood transfusion for decades, but from time to time he hooks up with Europe and the United States, and rides the wall temperament to death.
However, The old Lu's governing style is too paternalistic, showing the image of a loving father for many years, and has been accused of election fraud many times, which makes the European bigwigs very dissatisfied. Especially in 2020, Europe and the United States wanted to give Lao Lu a "color", but Lao Lu miraculously survived, and then arrested people and sent refugees... Also Europe with colors.
The pressure from Europe has made Belarus more and more dependent on Russia, which has further enhanced its status as a buffer zone in Russia's mind, and for Europe, the buffer effect of Belarus is weakening, and it is causing more and more trouble to Europe.
If this script continues, when White Russia falls to Russia in an all-round way, it will be followed by more intense geopolitical conflicts, and the land will once again stage a struggle between powers, and Belarus can only be a victim between Europe and Russia, no matter who loses and who wins, it will not change the fate of Belarus as a buffer small country.
End of article.