US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Belarus on February 1. During the visit, he met with President Alexander Lukashenko and Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei.

Judging by official statements, the meeting between the Belarusian leader and the American guest on Saturday was held in a warm atmosphere. Alexander Lukashenko joked, for example, stating that in Belarus "the dictatorship is different in that everyone rests on Saturday and Sunday, and the president works." He also reminded Pompeo that for a long time, though “in absentia”, he was familiar with him. According to Lukashenko, the Belarusian special services collaborated with the Americans during the work of Pompeo “in his former position” (in 2017-2018, Pompeo led the CIA).

“It’s very good that you, after all kinds of misunderstandings in relations between Belarus and the USA, absolutely groundless misunderstandings of the past authorities, ventured to come to Minsk and look at this country: what kind of people are here, what kind of people, what kind of dictatorship, what kind of democracy, a lot of it, a little, and so on, ”Lukashenko said at a meeting with Pompeo.

Results of the negotiations

The head of the State Department was no less kind. In particular, he said that the United States and Belarus are approaching the lifting of sanctions. In 2008, after Washington introduced restrictive measures against Minsk due to the human rights situation in the post-Soviet republic, the American ambassador was recalled from Belarus.

However, according to Pompeo, soon the head of the diplomatic mission will be appointed to the rank of ambassador to Minsk. Pompeo also proposed to provide Belarus with oil. Earlier, Alexander Lukashenko announced his intention to diversify oil supplies in order to reduce the volumes purchased from Russia to 30-40%.

“We had a long conversation on economic issues. Mr Lukashenko said that Belarusians have their own country - sovereign and independent, and they cannot be part of any other state. The United States wants to help Belarus be a sovereign state, BelTA quotes the US Secretary of State. - Our energy producers are ready to provide you with the necessary oil at 100% at competitive prices. We are the largest energy producer in the world. And all you need is to contact us. ”

At the same time, during a visit to Belarus, Pompeo emphasized that the United States is not going to make Belarusians a choice, to develop relations with Washington or Moscow.

Following talks with Pompeo, Vladimir Makei said that Minsk and Washington “have approaches or interests that coincide or overlap in a number of areas.” In particular, significant potential for economic cooperation was noted.

Also, according to the Belarusian minister, “an exchange of views on the situation in the region and on the prospects for Belarus’s interaction with the NATO bloc” took place. The Belarusian minister called on the United States to take a more “active role” in the post-Soviet country.

  • Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a press conference in the Independence Palace in Minsk
  • © Victor Tolochko / Sputnik / RIA News

Distinguished guests

Mike Pompeo is not the first high-ranking American official to visit Belarus during the presidency of Donald Trump.

At the end of October 2018, the successor of Victoria Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell visited Minsk. Two weeks before his visit, speaking at a meeting of the Atlantic Council *, Mitchell put Belarus on a par with Ukraine and Georgia, saying that their national sovereignty is "the most reliable defense against Russian neo-imperialism."

In August last year, John Bolton, then adviser to the US president for national security, arrived in Minsk. At a meeting with him, Alexander Lukashenko invited both countries to start relations “from a new sheet”.

  • US President National Security Advisor John Bolton speaks to reporters in Minsk after meeting with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko
  • © Victor Tolochko / Sputnik / RIA News

And in September 2019, the Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale visited Minsk.

Unlike Russia, whose interaction with NATO came to naught after the reunification of the Russian Federation with Crimea in 2014, Belarus is actively cooperating with the North Atlantic Alliance. On December 9 last year, former head of the General Staff Oleg Belokonev said that “Belarus is ready for joint exercises with NATO, even negotiations are underway on possible formats.”

Late last year, TASS, citing information from the Ministry of Defense of Belarus, said the republic was in talks with NATO to conduct joint peacekeeping missions. At the same time, Minsk declares that the interaction of Belarus with NATO does not go to the detriment of cooperation with the Russian Federation.

In the American strategic centers there is no unanimity on the issue of policy towards Belarus. So, in April last year, the RAND research center published the report “Overstrain of Russia: Competition from an Advantageous Position”, which was prepared as part of a project by the US Army.

This document considers the possibility of promoting a “regime change” in Belarus by sponsoring the opposition and initiating unrest. However, it is noted that this option carries significant risks and, most likely, will lead to a deterioration in the security situation in Europe.

“Belarus is the only real ally of Russia. Successful assistance to regime change and reorientation of the country towards the West would be a real blow for Moscow, ”the report says.

At the same time, RAND experts believe that to achieve this goal, the United States “can take the opposite approach and try to use recent unrest to build closer relations with the Lukashenko regime, offering him economic assistance.”

In turn, in September 2019, the Jamestown Foundation, affiliated with the CIA, published a report “The Growing Importance of Belarus on the Baltic Flank of NATO”. It notes that in its current state Minsk “does not allow the basing of Russian ground and air forces on its territory, which in itself, even without Belarus joining the North Atlantic Alliance, satisfies the interests of NATO.”

At the same time, the author of the report, the president of the foundation, Glen Howard, hopes that as Minsk’s interaction with NATO intensifies, it will be possible to withdraw it from the alliance with Moscow.

“By interacting with Belarus, NATO can actually help this small state become an outpost on the path of Russian neo-imperialism,” the report says.

  • American soldiers in Poland
  • Flickr
  • © US Army

“Elimination” or “normalization”

According to Valery Korovin, director of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, in an interview with RT, the intensification of US policy in Belarus, the result of which was the first visit of the US Secretary of State to Minsk in the last more than a quarter of a century, may be caused by the "real prospect of creating a new union state of Russia and Belarus" .

According to the expert, in Washington they could interpret constitutional changes just like that, which the Russian president said in a message to the Federal Assembly.

“As a result of constitutional changes in Russia, a fairly balanced, dispersed system of power can emerge, which opens up the possibility for an equal union of Russia and Belarus. The United States perceives the creation of such a new geopolitical entity as a threat, ”said Valery Korovin.

Belarus should not hope that with the help of the United States it will strengthen its sovereignty, the expert notes. An example of Ukraine shows that the result can be exactly the opposite.

“Lukashenko will be deceived, and will be deceived in the most cruel way. Not only will he not get oil at the prices at which he wants, they won’t get anything at all. Why do Americans need Belarusian oil products in the European market when this beautiful market can be filled with the Americans themselves? This is possible only if Belarusian oil products are completely sold to American tycoons, ”Valery Korovin believes.

According to the political scientist, any new agreement between Minsk and Washington now is the path to "liquidation of Belarus as a sovereign state."

In turn, Peter Petrovsky, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, said that Belarus is engaged in "normalizing relations" with the United States. "

“Today, Russian-American relations are an order of magnitude higher in intensity than Belarusian-American relations,” Petrovsky said in an interview with RT. - There are two solutions to this issue in the name of harmonizing our foreign policy. Either the Russian Federation will lower its level of relations with the United States, or the Republic of Belarus will increase its level to the level of Russian-American relations. As you know, today in Russia there is a US ambassador, it is easier for Russians to obtain American visas, there are various American investment programs. In Belarus, all this is not. ”

Regarding the issue of oil supplies, a Belarusian expert admitted that Lukashenko’s decision to look for oil not in Russia is “political” and was caused by Minsk’s reluctance to pay premiums to Russian oil companies that supplied Belarus with contaminated oil last year.

According to Petrovsky, now "we see attempts to use the American factor in order to improve negotiation positions with the fuel and energy complex of the Russian Federation." For Americans, rapprochement with Belarus is “a certain political game in the region” with the goal of “demonstrating its foreign policy influence, since Belarus is Russia's main ally.”

“By no means does the Republic of Belarus count on any partnership with the United States, because it understands that Washington has its own interests, which far from always coincide with the interests of Belarus, and even more so with its allied obligations to the Russian Federation,” says Belarusian political scientist.

According to the professor at the Higher School of Economics, Dmitry Evstafiev, the intensification of interaction on American terms is fraught for Minsk with "the Ukrainian version of the development of statehood and the economy." The promises of Pompeo, he said, should not be believed.

“These are absolutely manipulative things aimed at tearing Belarus away from Russia and forcing Alexander Lukashenko to make political statements that will lead him beyond the line of no return in relations with Moscow,” Evstafiev said in a commentary on RT.

* “Atlantic Council of the United States” - an organization whose activity is deemed undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation by decision of the Attorney General's Office of July 25, 2019.