Leaked documents reveal Russia plans to merge with Belarus by 2030

Leaked documents reveal Russia plans to merge with Belarus by 2030
Leaked documents show that Russia plans to complete a merger with Belarus by 2030, the Kyiv Independent reports, that includes a Russian takeover of the Belarusian military and the introduction of a single currency. / bne IntelliNews
By Ben Aris in Berlin February 23, 2023

Russia's plans to subsume Belarus and dismantle its independence by 2030, according to documents seen as part of an investigation by a group of US and European media outlets, including the Kyiv Independent, they reported on February 22.

The 17-page document details Russia's future steps to take full control of Belarusian political, economic and military spheres by the end of the decade.

Belarus and Russia signed a “Union State” deal in 1999 that is similar to the EU agreement that created a single market. The Union State is supposed to guarantee the free flow of labour, capital and goods. Work on harmonising regulations has been ongoing but the deal has yet to be implemented.

The Union State is part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's larger plan to create a joint market that unites the EU with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). Putin has often talked about creating a single market “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” However, there are significant differences between the regulations that govern the EU and those Russia intends for the EAEU.

Belarus should have a single currency and tax system with Russia by 2030, according to the document seen by the journalists, and its media space “must be under Russian control,” the investigations reported. The Belarusian army must comply with Russian regulations, while all key military production must be transferred from Belarus to Russia.

The two-part document is the joint effort of several agencies, representatives of one Western intelligence service told the Kyiv Independent on condition of anonymity: Russia's domestic, foreign and military intelligence services worked on the draft strategy presented in the leaked files.

The source alleges that the document was created in 2021 by the Kremlin's Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation. According to the leaked document, Russia's end goal is to finalise the merger of Russia and Belarus into a Moscow-run Union State by 2030, the Kyiv Independent reports.

After an initial flurry of activity during the boom years of the noughties, work on creating the Union State lay fallow for almost a decade until 2018, when Russia reformed its energy deals with Belarus as part of a “tax manoeuvre” that in effect cut the generous subsidies for Belarus. That led to protracted negotiations between Putin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. The Kremlin offered concessions on gas supplies in exchange for renewed work on bringing the Union State into being.

The Union State project fell by the wayside until 2018 when Belarus requested a discount on Russian oil. The Kremlin agreed to lower the price in exchange for political concessions.

In theory the melding of the Russian and Belarusian economies in a free trade deal makes a lot of sense, as bne IntelliNews argued in an op-ed on the geography of diplomacy, but in practice the plan is likely only a ruse for the Kremlin to increase its political control over its capricious neighbour and to also shore up its western military frontier that abuts Nato.

The draft plan is divided into two and subdivided into stages. The first part lays out the key phases of the Kremlin’s plan: short-term (2022), mid-term (2025) and long-term (2030). The second part identifies risks associated with the merger.

While the sections dealing with the merger of the two economies are similar to those of the EU and include a harmonising of regulations and stripping away many of the controls currently in place – including a currency union in 2030 – the political parts include much greater control over the media and the military by Russia, which is not the case in the EU.

In a timeline of the details of the plan published by the Kyiv Independent, the first stage of setting up the Union State (2022-2025) includes: forming pro-Russian sentiments among the population, while limiting the influence of nationalist and pro-Western forces in Belarus; constitutional reform based on Russian interests; forming joint opposition to Nato expansion in Poland and the Baltic; and holding joint military-tactical drills as well as setting up Russian military bases in Belarus.

The Kremlin has already been experimenting with setting up pro-Russia political parties inside Belarus with the establishment of “The Right of the People” Party in December 2020. So far this effort has not progressed very far.

The second stage (2025-2030) includes: creating pro-Russian players in Belarusian politics; expanding Russian military presence; investing into expanding military production; and simplifying the procedure for issuing Russian passports to Belarusians.

The third stage (2030-onwards) includes: creating a unified border and defence policy; setting up a joint military command with unified norms for both armies; and starting the production of key Belarus-made military products in Russia.

Lukashenko has been under pressure since he was reinstalled in the fraudulent presidential elections on August 17, 2020, that immediately sparked massive popular protests. Since then, and under Russian pressure, he has promised to change the constitution and reduce his own control over the country, but he has dragged his feet and turned the process over for “consultations” to Parliament. A referendum on the constitutional changes was slated for this year, but even that is unlikely.

In the meantime, instead of diluting his powers, at the start of February he amended the election laws to create a new party that is specifically tasked with improving his control over the political system.

The EIU’s Democracy Index dubbed Belarus one of 2022’s “worst performers”, giving it an average score of 1.99 out of 10.00 and it winning zero points for “electoral processes and pluralism.”

With his power now entirely dependent on the security forces that remain loyal to him, Lukashenko has been nervous of restarting the mass protests and is fearful of being ousted by Russia if he concedes too much sovereignty to the Kremlin.

As part of Russia’s support of Lukashenko after the protests broke out he signed a new “integration programme” with Russia in November 2021, but that did not include political integration, which was put off until 2025, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Lukashenko has also resisted Russia’s calls for setting up a military base in Belarus, which would seriously undermine his grip on power. Russia made effective use of its 25,000-man strong military base in Crimea to annex the peninsula in 2014.

However, he has been forced into concessions after the demonstrations made him entirely dependent on Russian help. He has extended the lease-free agreement to use Belarusian military bases, including the long-distance communication centre in Vileika, and allowed Russia to use Belarus as a bridgehead over Ukraine’s northern border during the invasion a year ago.

Russia continues to keep significant forces in Belarus and continues to launch missile strikes on Ukraine from its territory from the Ziabrauka and Luninets airfields close to the Ukrainian border. However, experts say that a second invasion of Ukraine from Belarus is highly unlikely. In the meantime, Kyiv has fortified its border with Belarus to make that possibility much more difficult.

Belarusian industry has also been pressed into service to aid the Russian campaign. Belarus produced spare parts and services for the Russian army worth $43.5mn to cover Russia's drop in imports due to international sanctions. The sum is anticipated to rise to $62-64mn in 2023, the Kyiv Independent reports.

Since the 2020 demonstrations, Lukashenko and Putin have met regularly and the Kremlin has extended billions of dollar of loans. Belarus has been cut off from the international capital markets and is now completely reliant on Russian funding to keep its economy going.

Putin has been using this dependency as leverage to continue to squeeze concessions out of the former collective farm boss. They met most recently in in Novo-Ogaryovo, near Moscow in Russia, to talk about "economic, military and political issues." Putin said that bilateral trade between the two rose to $43bn in 2022, and Lukashenko pointedly replied that Minsk has “completely fulfilled its defence and security agreements” with Moscow.

In keeping with the leaked documents’ goal of setting up military production facilities in Belarus, Lukashenko said that Belarus is prepared to begin manufacture of the advanced Russian Su-25 fighter jets.

Lukashenko repeated earlier comments that Belarus will not enter the war in Ukraine, unless “at least one [Ukrainian] soldier sets foot in Belarus to kill my people."

"If they commit aggression against Belarus, the answer will be immediate… The war will acquire a completely different scale," he added.

Since the 2020 mass uprising, many Western companies have pulled out of Belarus, although, like Russia, Lukashenko signed a decree in March 2022 that prohibited them from selling their shares. The list of 219 companies barred from exiting the country contain many tech companies, as counterintuitively Belarus had become a software engineering global powerhouse despite Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule, but the sector has been decimated by the political chaos.

Amongst the biggest names on the list is EPAM, the New York-listed software developer that had a large part of its development teams based in Belarus. The listed Eurotorg supermarket chain is also on the list; it has been trying to attract foreign investment to develop its attractive consumer-orientated business in recent years.

The EU followed the 2020 elections with massive packages of sanctions, but in a similar story to Russia, the sanctions contained many calve outs and exemptions, as Europe remains heavily dependent on many Belarusian inputs such as fertilisers. And like Russia, Belarus has successfully developed its trade relations with the EU, which takes about half of the Republic’s exports. As a result in 2022 Belarus’ exports to Europe tripled to $50bn despite the sanctions, which have only been tightened thanks to Lukashenko’s support of Putin’s war.

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