Putin: Russia-Belarus Merger 'Possible' And 'Desirable'

SELIGER LAKE, Russia — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he supports calls for Russia to merge with its western neighbor Belarus.

Belarus has been an independent state since the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991.

Speaking at a Kremlin youth camp, Putin said Monday the return to Soviet-style unity is "possible, desirable and wholly dependent on the will of the Belarusian people."

Russia and Belarus already have open borders, with their citizens able to travel freely and seek employment in either country.

Authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is a fierce defender of his country's sovereignty.

But Belarus is mired in its worst financial crisis since independence, and Lukashenko is under pressure to sell key parts of its industry to Russians in exchange for a bailout.

Comments

[fanetiks]

08:38 PM on 08/14/2011

Russia is a decidedly Western country whose basic similarity to other Western countries is blocked from Western view by the different alphabet. The political culture is, of course, very different, because of its authoritarian, then totalitarian history, and the economic transition from state enterprises and central planning to a more free-market system was very difficult -- thanks to vicious refusal of the U.S. and other Western countries to help in any meaningful way. Russia needs to stop resenting the success of the West and join other Western countries in cooperative arrangements, including joining NATO. Whether Russia should as well join the EU is a trickier question. What it must NOT do is turn its back on the West and try to reconstitute a Russian empire that would STILL not be the equal of even the EU, much less the U.S. The old empires of Western and Central Europe have given up hopes of reviving their empires. Russia needs to do the same.

[Vlad Roudenko]

11:38 PM on 08/16/2011

Russia is a western country? You obviously haven't been to Russia or talked with Russians if you have this impression. The political culture of Russia is authoritarian? Wrong again. How is Russia resenting the success of the west? What success exactly are you referring to? Russia has plenty of cooperative arrangements with Europe. Russia to join NATO? Truth be known, Russia did try to join NATO at the very beginning. It's membership application was refused. Why join this dying alliance anyway? Russia joining EU would be the worst idea possible. Russia has suffered enough already through the turbulent 90s and the recovery of the early 2000. Just when we got to top 10 economies we should join a dying block of debtors? Germany will likely be the first to abandon this union. Their patience has limits. I think it's really not your or the west's place to tell what Russia must or must not do.

[DAE]

11:47 PM on 08/04/2011

My maternal grandparents and their relatives came from villages on the outskirts of Minsk, the capital of Belarus. They always considered themselves emigres from Russia. The term Byelorussia or Belarus was never used.

[TaoistG]

12:32 AM on 08/05/2011

mine from latvia... we're probably (very) distant cousins.

[DAE]

12:53 AM on 08/05/2011

The other side of my family traces back to Vilnius, Lithuania.

[AttilasMom]

10:05 AM on 08/02/2011

The Evil Empire is re-emerging form its ashes. After digesting Belarus Russia will swallow up Ukraine. In Ukraine use of the Ukrainian language has been formally forbidden in all schools and government institutions including the media which is controlled from Moscow. The are NO Ukrainian language TV or radio stations only Russian is allowed. Having tried to exterminate the Ukrainian peolpe in a genocide in 1932-33 by a mass artificial starvation that took ten milliion Ukrainian lives the Russians are now engaged in a stealth campaign through is thugs and cronies within Ukraine to impose a cultural genocide wiping out all Ukrainian national identity and replacing it with all things Russian. Even childrens school books have been rewritten with a pro Russian bias eliminating Ukraine's own history. This is one of the great untold stories happening right now and the world is callously ignoring it. Only a few EU diplomats have drawn attention to it underscoring its evil. The US is more concerned with resetting relations with Russia than antagonizing it over Belarus and Ukraine. All nationalist political opposition in Ukraine is being destroyed by the Russian agents in government it is becoming a Russian run Communist dictatorship once again and the Obama administration is fully aware of it but choosing to ignore it as hopeless. There will be grave consequences for the west if Russia succeeds in its imperialist expansion by destroying the independence of both Belarus and Ukraine.

[adamben]

02:04 PM on 08/02/2011

yes, indeed. this is the same pattern after the fall of czarist russia to the bolsheviks. imperial russia split into many independent states but through time the soviet union rolled them back up. this is putin's/russia's model.

[fanetiks]

08:15 PM on 08/14/2011

It would appear that you are making up this whole 'fact' of the suppression of the Ukrainian language, in that a Google search shows no such thing, but that the use of the Ukrainian language is increasing (e.g., http://www.tryukraine.com/info/languages.shtml).

[bbursky]

10:05 AM on 08/02/2011

If anyone wants the "Cold War" to return Just Vote Trump The Hump & tea party and if they Win you will see China Ally with a new USSR and the Demise of the USA

[fanetiks]

08:16 PM on 08/14/2011

Russia may or may not bring in former "republics", but it will never be the Soviet Union again. Soviet Communism is gone.

[netzwerg]

06:00 AM on 08/02/2011

"this is another great story, the American People give billions to Russia and now Russia wants to bail out Belarus, because of it finacal crisis?"

It's the other way round. Russia gives money to the US to finance the debt lifestyle of the Americans.
The US owes Russia $115.2billion as of May 2011.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt

[checkmoot]

08:48 AM on 08/02/2011

We owed Russia 170 billion a short time ago. They are starting to bail. Get into investments that are less likely to go belly up.

[fanetiks]

08:17 PM on 08/14/2011

Russia is INVESTED in the United States.

[DAE]

01:41 AM on 08/02/2011

Once Russia, Belarus, Kazakhsta­n, and Ukraine reunite the other Republics will be hankering to get back in. Even the Baltic Republics will want back in after the shafting they got from EU. Anyway the EU is a basket case. Now that they've gotten over the "freedom and democracy" bug the Eastern Block will reemerge as they fall away from a moribund EU and gravitate back to their big brother to the East. Once they form a Grand Entente with China the West is toast.

[Juraj Farsky]

01:56 AM on 08/02/2011

This is what happens when people use Drugs

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

09:19 AM on 08/02/2011

No,"DAE" is off his thorazine again....

[Vlad Roudenko]

11:56 PM on 08/16/2011

Still no fans?

[deluk]

08:14 AM on 08/02/2011

The EU is less "moribund" than the USA and I really don;t think the people of the Baltic states will want to leave their jobs in England, France and Germany and head off to Russia, where people die when they're about 60 or something.

[Juraj Farsky]

12:59 AM on 08/02/2011

Well I am not surprised Russians are the most aggressive nation in Europe, they've started II WW and now they're trying to start another one.

[Vlad Roudenko]

01:13 AM on 08/02/2011

We did not start either war... Joker, better go back in history. UK, France, and Germany are by far the most aggressive. How is Russia trying to start another war?

[Juraj Farsky]

01:33 AM on 08/02/2011

Oh really >?? And who supported Nazi Germany and provided them with a raw materials and food, who invaded Poland ? Invasion of Poland is widely cosindered as beginning of the II WW Russia and Germany invaded Poland together.
So called non-aggression treaty devided Europe between Germany and Russia. While Germans still prepared their invasions Russians left Ukrainians starving to death. And what happened after so called "liberation" ??? Russia invaded peace loving countries of eastern Europe with tanks (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc...)

Russians don't belong to Europe.

[DAE]

01:24 AM on 08/02/2011

They say that in the multiverse all eventualities are possible. Which alternative universe are you living in?

[AgingLady]

12:29 AM on 08/02/2011

Putin takes over another country.

[DAE]

01:26 AM on 08/02/2011

And which countries, pray tell, has he taken over previously?

[Ed Baggett]

10:37 PM on 08/01/2011

Putin, who still runs Russia, should just get some troops together, & walk over & take Belarus like Hitler took most of Europe.....

[Vlad Roudenko]

01:14 AM on 08/02/2011

You must be out of your mind... This is more for the benefit of Belarus than ours.

[Ed Baggett]

01:23 AM on 08/02/2011

Mostly this was a sarcastic remark, but if you think about it, it wouldn't be too far fetched for Russia to try anything !

[TheOuroborus]

10:13 PM on 08/01/2011

I mean, what the frick is 'Blue Russia' anyway? Have you SEEN the cheesy dictator there? He makes the nouveau riche Russians in LA look like well-to-do Parisians.

[GaddafismyHero]

10:12 PM on 08/01/2011

Russia ,Belarus ,Kazakhstan ,Ukraine new Union coming soon, Gorby should be arrested for Russian-Chechen, Armenia-Azeri, Ossetia-Georgia wars, Corruption, Poverty, Depression and letting the USSR collapse and let millions of people displaced, Gorbachev reminds me of Obama allot considering Gorbachev let my country collapse.

[Vlad Roudenko]

12:25 AM on 08/02/2011

Obama is destroying America little by little. He is now doing what Soviet Union could not: destroy America from within. The country is really degrading morally. It's a financial disaster waiting to happen.

[fanetiks]

08:23 PM on 08/14/2011

Perhaps you should stick to talking about Russia, about which you seem to know something.

[Jan Badinski]

01:09 AM on 08/15/2011

I disagree, this degeneration started long before Obama came along, a repercussion of the Reagan years.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

09:34 AM on 08/02/2011

Neither the Ukraine nor the Baltics will EVER willingly accept Russian domination again. Ukraine was conquered in the 18th Century and RECONQUERED by the Bolshevics lead by Stalin at the end of the so-called Russian Revolution. Even after the Germans were ejected in 1943, Ukrainian patriots wanted no return to the genocide imposed by Moscow's Bolshevics.....

Russia MUST be constrained so as induce INTERNAL maturity and now allowed to subjugate, murder, and linguistically suppress her Western 'neighbours' EVER again..... Stalin was truly the "red tsar," and Putin is glowing ever more imperialist......since he's never focused on anything but DOMINATING other people(s).

[Vlad Roudenko]

12:08 AM on 08/17/2011

Ukraine was not conquered in the 18th century. Those so called patriots killed a lot of people in Ukraine. Who is going to "constrain" Russia? The dying American Empire or debt ridden EU? No one is suppressing, subjugating or murdering anyone. Ukraine is a bilingual, bi-national nation. Stalin was a Georgian, not Russian. Putin has been tirelessly rebuilding Russia. Patriots tend to do this. I know this is a completely foreign concept in the US and many other European states. Who has Putin been dominating? Perhaps you should do some more research on this, but this time not in Russophobic sources.

[Majick1]

09:47 PM on 08/01/2011

Putin wants to return to the old USSR. He has been working for the return to the old power since he came on the front. He is dangerous and all should know that about him. The young democratic Russians are scared about this man and his intentions. The World better pour some money into Belarus before it becomes BELARUSSIA as it was called before paristroyka.

[GaddafismyHero]

09:54 PM on 08/01/2011

Young Democratic Russians ? Democracy ended in the 90's in Russia, Russians got a Good taste of the democratic era of the 90's war ,poverty, Chaos, Depression, most Russians support Putin the only Russians afraid of him are the oligarchs, Russia and Belarus have a great relationship including historical and cultural ties so Union it is.

[fanetiks]

08:24 PM on 08/14/2011

Your ID renders everything you say suspect.

[Jan Badinski]

01:49 AM on 08/17/2011

It was my understanding that Russia went from Communism to Democracy in the 90s and stayed a Democracy. This thought was encouraged by news of trade in Russia, that the new system of Democracy was working well. Though I do admit my readings on the subject are dated. I do know that the transition in the 90s wasn't a smooth one, that there was a significant lack of money, and that resources were not readily available. I had hoped that had changed.

[Vlad Roudenko]

09:58 PM on 08/01/2011

Are you a part of the Russophobic lobby in the US?

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

09:49 AM on 08/02/2011

On the contrary, we see how disastrously harmful Russian aggression has been for Ukraine, most of Eastern Europe, as well as the RUSSIAN people themselves. Russian NEEDS to show GREAT DISRESPECT for its "ruling elite"; they're still in love--just like the Romanovs and especially, the BOLSHEVIC scum--with DOMINATION and SUBJUGATION of people who are happy producing and creating.....

Putin harkens to the sour predictability of Bolshevism, its rejection of HUMAN VALUE(S), its pointless and brutal sacrifice for "a greater good" that isn't......and is never ALLOWED to come. Coincidentally, he's short like Lenin and enjoys conjuring the pea-headed, tough guy image....

Russia NOW needs leaders more in the image(!!!) of Tolstoy, yea, Checkov--and not polemical worms like Sverdlov, Rykov, and TROTSKY!

(If only Fanya Kaplan had aimed better!!!)

[ikonoklast44]

09:16 PM on 08/01/2011

Putin is nothing more than the godfather of a Criminal Enterprise.

[TaoistG]

12:40 AM on 08/05/2011

the truth is definitely not easily accepted when said godfather singlehandedly controls a nuclear arsenal second in size only to the US.

[americaisracist]

12:26 AM on 08/16/2011

like {fill in name of your country} isn't criminal?

[GaddafismyHero]

09:02 PM on 08/01/2011

I watched a documentary on a young Putin he was working for the KGB, He was crying his heart out watching the USSR flag slowly descend.

[TheOuroborus]

10:16 PM on 08/01/2011

He has far, far, FAR greater power and immunity than he EVER had in the KGB. He murders any voice against him in broad daylight with NO repercussions. He's up there in wealth with his old CIA counterpart Bush in terms of wealth and influence.

[Vlad Roudenko]

12:26 AM on 08/02/2011

Why does no one ever cite the sources to back up their claims? Is it because it's all B.S?

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

09:51 AM on 08/02/2011

Yes! Where are suicide bombers or the Chechins when they are needed?

[wheeljc]

08:58 PM on 08/01/2011

Note Putin's view of the USA!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-russia-putin-usa-idUSTRE77052R20110801

..... And the USA rushes to disarm! Strategic planning at its worse, or do we simply not know what we are doing??

[Vlad Roudenko]

10:00 PM on 08/01/2011

Very accurate view on the US. Where did you get the sense that the US is disarming?

[fanetiks]

08:30 PM on 08/14/2011

Putin has ambitions for his country that the U.S. blocks. His bitterness is hardly surprising. I suspect you could find British and French nationalists nostalgic for the "good old days" of their empires too. Similarly, ambitious Chinese harken back to the days when China was "the Middle Kingdom", center of the world in their view.

[Vlad Roudenko]

08:45 PM on 08/14/2011

The US is in position to block something? I think not. While the US is quickly going into decline, Russia is rapidly rising.

[Vlad Roudenko]

08:46 PM on 08/14/2011

And, by the way, the US is a parasite on the world economy. This is not just Putin's view.