Most political commentators agree that the Minsk armistice negotiations over the war in eastern Ukraine have raised Belarus’s international profile (see EDM, February 12). Thus, according to Kirill Koktysh, a Minsk-born professor at the Institute of Foreign Relations in Moscow, the Belarusian government should take advantage of the limited window of opportunities whereby, for the time being, the West is ready to talk on conditions set by Belarus. In Koktysh’s opinion, Minsk can play a central role in the European Union’s new integration project that will, most probably, replace the Eastern Partnership, to which the Ukrainian crisis has dealt a …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation