Belarus?

It looks like the next potential conflict in Eastern Europe is over Belarus. Russia has had more than one conflict with Georgia (population 3.7 million) that has split off two separate states from it (Abkhazia and Ossetia). Both of these conflicts pre-date Putin’s presidency of Russia. Russia more recently has had a conflict with Ukraine (population 42 million, excluding Crimea and Sevastopol) that split off two “Peoples Republics” (Donetsk and Lugansk) and annexed Crimea. Pre-dating Putin is the Transnistia Republic cut out of Moldava (population 2.7 excluding Transnistria, which is 0.5 million).

Now, apparently Russia and Belarus are in a discussion over economic integration that the dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko (age 65), is not too happy with. He claims that his talks last week with Putin is not about “integration” of their economies but about  “merging.” Meanwhile Russia has cut the oil to Belarus, forcing it to get it from Norway and other places.

So what is Belarus exactly? It is a country of only abut 9.5 million people. Not very big, although not very densely populated. It has one major city (Minsk) with an urban population of around two million. Its second largest city is Homeyel (Gomel) with a only half million. For all practical purposes, it is an old style city state, with one major urban area and lot of land. It is 208 thousand sq. kilometers, or about the size of the state of Kansas or Nebraska. To compare:

……………………………..,……Belarus…………Russia………….Ukraine
Population (millions)………………..9.5……………147………………42

GDP (billions)………………………60……………1,657…………….134
Per Capita…………………….$6,477………….$11,305………..$3,220

Area (thousand sq. km.)………..208…………..17,098…………….604

Part of the problem is that Lukashenko has been dictator of Belarus for the last 20 years. He is not exactly close to the U.S., the E.U. or hardly anyone else. He is kind of standing alone, which is not a very good position to be in when one of your neighbors is at least 15 times larger (and over 27 times richer) .

We shall see how this develops, but an independent Belarus always looked a little improbable. It was briefly independent once before, in 1918. The Belarus Rada still maintains itself as a government-in-exile, located now in Vancouver Canada. This is actually the oldest remaining government-in-exile.