While the outcome of this past month’s presidential elections in Belarus continues to be discussed, the major news refrains have become the debate on a Russian airbase in Belarus, rapprochement with the West, the prospects for economic reform, and labor migration to and from Belarus.
During an improvised briefing at a Minsk voting precinct on election day, October 11, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka opined that there is no need for a Russian airbase in Belarus; it would have been better if Moscow helped Minsk to renovate Belarus’s own fleet of warplanes. Alexander Alesin, a military expert, believes Lukashenka’s words signaled the …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation