Foreign relations of Russia towards Belarus
The foreign policy of the Russian Federation towards the Republic of Belarus is the policy for which Russia interacts with the Belorussian nation and its citizens and organizations and sets standards of interaction for Russian organizations, corporations and individual citizens towards it.
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Early 90s
After the USSR collapsed, the newly formed Russian state tried to maintain control over the post-Soviet space by creating, on December 8, 1991, a regional organization – the CIS. However, Belarus, as other republics in the CIS, started to drift away from Russia, which at that time was attempting to stabilize its broken economy and ties with the West. In the early 90s Russia was concerned that its involvement in the near abroad state such as Belarus would risk the relations it was trying to build with the West. However, as NATO’s began to expand eastward Russia found itself in a dire situation. On the one hand, it was facing a breakup of the large geopolitical bloc it had once owned; on the other, it felt that the West was trying to isolate it from the European environment by picking up the pieces of its former empire. This led to the increasing importance of good relations with Belarus.
Mid through end of the 90s
During the mid nineties and especially after Lukashenko came to power, Belarus seemed an ideal candidate for integration with Russia. Yeltsin said after signing, in February 1995, the with Belarus, that “the two nations [had] shared a common historical experience over many centuries.” That, he declared, had “created the basis for signing the treaty and other documents on deeper integration of our two countries. Among all CIS countries, Belarus has the greatest rights to such a relationship due to its geographical location, its contacts with Russia, our friendship and the progress of its reforms.” The integration process was launched on April 2, 1996 and exactly a year later, the Union of Belarus and Russia was founded. The culmination this process was the establishment of a Union State between the RF and Belarus on December 8, 1999.
2000s
After Putin took office he expressed his deep dissatisfaction with the status of the relations with Belarus and criticized the 1999 treaty, the policy he had set was to put real content into this treaty. His proposal was to continue in the unification either in a federation model which meant that Belarus will join the Russian Federation or to build a union which is similar to the EU. However, Belarus refused and status que was maintained. Despite that, the strategic value of Belarus seemed to continue to rise in Russian eyes because of the international developments. These activities included the US military activity in the post-Soviet space since September 11, 2001, the eastern European states shift towards the west, the plans to deploy NATO's missile defense system in Poland or the Czech Republic, and above all the rise of the colour revolutions. As a result, despite setbacks in political and economic integration, the military-integration processes between the two states continued. As Russia realized that a full integration with Belarus will be costly, it shifted its foreign policy towards a more pragmatic direction. Two major goals were distinguishable in this policy - The first was to reduce the economic burden which Belarus laid on its economy and the second was to take over the energy transit infrastructure in Belarus. These two goals have influenced most of the conflicts and Gas Wars between the two countries.
References
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Russia_towards_Belarus
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