MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted a $1. 5 billion loan to Belarus in a gesture towards its leader Alexander Lukashenko, who flew to implore his boss for help after five weeks of mass protests that did not facilitate his resignation.
A day after more than 100,000 protesters took to the streets of Minsk with chants of “You’re a Rat,” Lukashenko met With Putin at sochi’s Black Sea hotel, who needed urgent assistance for his 26-year-old power control.
“First of all, I need to thank youArray . . . personally thank you and all Russians, all those, and I will not list them, who were concerned about our help in this post-election period,” Lukashenko said.
The Kremlin said some of the new ones would be used to refinance past loans.
Of Putin’s backed plans, Lukashenko has already announced constitutional reform, which the opposition has rejected to retain force after the disputed presidential election on August 9.
But his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia would withdraw an arsenal of police and national guards that Putin had placed near the border by the end of last month, in a position to interfere should the stage get out of hand.
This resolution marked Moscow’s willingness to focus on monetary support, not force, and perhaps its confidence that a violent crackdown through Lukashenko’s security forces will be effective enough to keep it in force in the former Soviet republic.
“We need belarusians themselves, without stimulus or tension from the outside, to this scenario calmly and through discussion and to find a non-unusual solution,” Putin said.
Putin, however, said defense cooperation would continue. Hours earlier, Russian news agencies reported that Moscow sent paratroopers for joint exercises.
REWARD MEETING
It was an awkward assembly for Lukashenko, 66, who had faced Moscow some time before the election by gathering 32 Russian citizens accused through Belarus of being mercenaries sent to destabilize the country.
Lukashenko said he was “very grateful” for Moscow’s support, adding that he had learned “a very serious lesson” from recent events. At one point, the television photographs showed him wipering sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.
Since the election, which Lukashenko denies having manipulated to defeat opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, thousands of people have been arrested and almost all opposition leaders imprisoned, deported or forced into exile. Police said they arrested 774 other people on Sunday.
In reaction to the news of the Russian loan, Tsikhanouskaya wrote on the social media platform Telegram: “Dear Russians!Your taxes will pay off. We’re sure they need it.
“This may prolong the agonies of Lukashenko’s death, but it saves you the victory of the people,” he said.
The loan amount slightly exceeds the $1. 4 billion Belarus spent on gold and foreign currency last month to its ruble currency.
A Russian political analyst, Fyodor Lukyanov, said it was a significant seasoning for Lukashenko.
“At the moment, Minsk does not have an outdoor cash source in Moscow . . . For him, that was his main purpose: to refinance the debt and a new loan. He did,” Lukyanov said.
“Because they give him cash and actively cooperate with him, (this shows) Moscow believes he will remain in power, at least for the time being. The stage is stabilizing. “
The West acted cautiously, balancing sympathy with the pro-democracy motion opposed to the concern to provoke Russian intervention. French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with Putin, reiterated his calls for a non-violent solution that respects the will of the Belarusian people.
Lukashenko has been Russia’s thorny best friend in the afterlife and had a delicate private date with Putin. But the Kremlin has made it clear that it needs to see a best friend overthrown through street protests, as happened in 2014 in Ukraine.
(Additional report via Maria Kannedova, Tom Balmforth and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, written through Mark Trevelyan and Peter Graff; edited through Timothy Heritage, Gareth Jones and Alex Richardson)
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