According to a media report, Russia apparently wants to gradually incorporate its neighboring country Belarus by 2030. This is suggested by a document from the Moscow presidential administration, which NDR, WDR and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” say they have evaluated together with nine other media.
Accordingly, the strategists of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin apparently want to infiltrate Belarus politically, economically and militarily. The goal would be a common union state under Russian leadership, as the media report, citing the document. Efforts to establish a union state have been around since 1999, but it has not been clear up until now how far Russia has defined its role in it. Up until now, the Union had always been presented as an association in the interests of both parties. The documents that have now been evaluated, on the other hand, are exclusively about asserting Russian interests.
Western security circles reportedly believe the internal 17-page Kremlin document to be authentic. The paper entitled “Strategic Goals of the Russian Federation in Belarus” appears to date from the summer of 2021. According to the reports, it lists Russia’s strategic goals in Belarus in the areas of politics/defence, trade and economy, and society, and in the short term (up to 2022), medium term (until 2025) and long term (2030).
Moscow’s strategic goal is, among other things, “to ensure the dominant influence of the Russian Federation in the areas of social policy, trade, economy, science, education and culture”. The constitutional reform passed in Belarus last February is to be completed according to Russian conditions, and laws are to be “harmonized” with those of the Russian Federation, it said. At the same time, the Kremlin wants to push back Western influence and create a bulwark against NATO.
“In its external form, the document resembles a standard document of the Russian bureaucracy or political administration,” said Martin Kragh, deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS). The content is “largely consistent with Russia’s political goals towards Belarus since the 1990s”.
Several Western intelligence agencies that were shown the paper also reportedly believe it is credible. “The content of the document is absolutely plausible and corresponds to what we also perceive,” the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” quoted a high-ranking intelligence officer as saying. The strategy paper should be seen as part of a larger plan by Putin: the creation of a new Greater Russian Empire.
