That is Putin's plan, at any rate. Belarus will be fully absorbed into Russia by the end of the decade.
There will be no Belarus. The Russians will do their best to stamp out the Belarusian language by insisting that locals "speak human". Belarusians will become second-class citizens in an expanded Russia, as was true in the USSR, which put Russians as an unofficial favored class. What the people of Belarus themselves want is of no concern to either Putin or Lukashenko, but it's a safe bet that being swallowed up by Russia is something few want.
Lukashenko has chosen being slowly eaten by the Russian bear as a price worth paying to stay in power for a few more years.
For Putin, this gets him a step down the road of restoring the Russian Empire by using his favorite tools: Bribery and strong-arming. If the Belarusian people resist, he'll roll the tanks without having to worry about an opposing army. I haven't done any research to see how he plans to subsume Kazachstan, but it's a no-brainer to think that is in the cards.
Putin tried his best to get Ukraine the same way, but a majority of the peole weren't having any of that shit. His Plan B is the nighmare that Eastern Eurpoe is living now.
The American Far Right is saying that, if the rest of the world acquiesces in Putin's stated territorial ambitions, there will be peace, again. Of course, they said the same thing in the late 1930s and we all know how well that worked out.
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Kazakhstan has about 3-4 years to go. The new leader is actually making some small moves toward democracy, and they just limited his tenure to 7 years. Either the next President will be a Putin puppet, or a revolution (see Ukraine) will occur soon thereafter. With only 17 million or so people there isn’t much they can do to resist, and with a 15% Russian ethnicity, there’s the new ruling class established already.
In the Greater Mother Russia, we are all comrades, but some comrades are more equal than others. News flash: Somehow 1984 has escaped being censured and is a best seller.
Russia has become the apotheosis of A Cask of Amontillado. It not only immures other countries, but it immures itself.
For the love of God, Montresor.....
There is a sizable opposition in Belarus against Putin's puppet, but they are scattered to other nations in exile. A number of them are fighting in Ukraine in the hopes that stopping Russia would force Lukashenko out as well.
Russia may put more political and financial pressure on the bordering nations to try and turn places like Kazakhstan into parts of Putin's delusional empire, but they won't get far if Putin keeps failing on the global stage like this.
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