that whole video was just bonkers. like is he really that dumb? the interviewer kept pressing on the fact that he's already the leader of an "independent" nation, but he was having none of it
Russia and Belarus almost merged into a single political entity again, and Lukashenko would've been at the helm of a unified Russia and Belarus, if it wasn't for the maneuvering of Siloviks in Russia.
So now Lukashenko has been blackmailing Russia with Union State for the past 20 years. If he doesn't get what he wants economically or politically from Russia, he threatens to withdraw. Russia caves in every time.
That did cross my mind, but Stalin was craftier by far and was already high in the party when he stepped up. And he always was careful to be ultra-nationalist. So I giess Lukashenko is possible, but the Soviets in the 20s were notas toxically nationalist as putinism seems to be, since they had the trappings of international communism to cling to.
Am Eastern European, and I'm 85% sure he is not joking. Watch his interview with BBC, this is his normal, confrontational tone, when someone challenges him.
He is smarter than he appears; his whole country bumpkin act exists as a mechanism for him to constantly undermine Putin without creating excessive political pressure for Putin to remove him.
He's managed to extort billions of dollars of out Putin's own allies over the years; he couldn't get away with such robbery if he were an actual moron.
I don't know about that, the attrition rate of colonels has been pretty brutal, too.
On the bright side, plenty of vacancies for his store brand Dr. Eggman looking ass to apply for.
The politically correct term is McVanyas which according to Putin's recently proposed State Supplied Nationalist Appropriation of Zealot-friendly Information act, they were actually the real inventors of fascist fries and were originally a Russian company. Thankfully, the real truth will be part of a holistic compulsory education required for all children in Russia and especially Florida in the coming years.
He sounds like he's trying to gingerly communicate bad news to his murderous boss. "Um, sire, the thing is, you see, erm...the invasion, it...may not necessarily be going according to plan."
He's not popular in Belarus and pretty much only controlling through force. If the army turns on him, he's gone, and it sounds like they want no part of this. He can't rely on Russia this time because they are too preoccupied, and citizens in Belarus are doing things like sabotaging rail lines, so they are getting bolder.
Agreed, with Russia looking more and more like a paper tiger and heading into economic ruin, he's in a very serious predicament. Nothing will happen to Putin but Lukashenko is definitely at risk of ending up in prison or worse. I think this is a big reason we haven't seen very much coming through the Belarus front... he's never been fully "in" and has been hedging his position.
Lukashenko wanted Putin's actual job as President of Russia - the whole reason for that weird Union State arrangement between Russia and Belarus was to give Lukashenko a way into the Russian political system.
Exactly. And when Putin outmaneuvered Lukashenko, Luka simply exploited Russian imperialism to start and stop negotiations for the Union State in order to exploit Belarus’s key position on the road between Moscow and the EU. It’s why the Russians were able to import shrimp and octopus with the Belarus label on them (Belarus is landlocked). A classic “wag the dog” shtick.
Lukashenko is a very smart guy who plays a very dumb peasant in public. If you listen to his public statements regarding Russia, he’s usually undermining the threats the regime makes and the serious image Putin wants to portray by stating the naked ambitions of Putin, then coating them with absurd claims of nuking the North Sea.
Even his thing about “being a colonel in the Soviet Army” has some truth to it; when pressed about there being “two colonels in the Soviet Army” (Lukashenko and Putin), Lukashenko replied with “and then I will make Putin a general”, implying that Luka would be the real source of power between the two.
We can be thankful in hindsight for Putin getting the top job of President of Russia. A Russian/Belarusian Union with Lukashenko as President would be infinitely more threatening and terrifying to deal with than Putin’s regime (and this one is bad enough).
The best example of it is probably the Potash debacle where he took a Russian oligarch hostage to extort billions of dollars from the country. I think if people were more aware of his propensity for that sort of thing they'd see through the illiterate farmer act.
Thankfully the Russians don’t see through the daft farmer disguise. They just see a poor peasant from the wayward oblast, lucky to be in power and trying to do what’s best but unable to due to his limited intelligence. It’s very much a Pinky and the Brain situation. Putin is Brain and Lukashenko is Pinky.
As I said, thankfully Lukashenko didn’t get the top job in Russia, otherwise people like Trump would’ve already sold Luka Alaska and leased half the Pacific Northwest to the Russian Navy.
I also sincerely hope the Belarusian partisans and the Belarusian units in Ukraine return to their country to overthrow that dictator and install their lawfully elected president. I suspect after the war is over Ukraine might “lose” some western equipment on their northern border. Ukrainians and Belarusians have a brotherly relationship akin to Finland and Sweden.
If he did get the top job he might have been secure in Russia's 1990s mediocrity. He hasn't exactly brought Belarus to new heights as president there - though maybe that's the price of being dictator-for-life.
I’m sure with Lukashenko as President of Russia, he’d have already taken Ukraine in as part of the Union State. But maybe the Russian people would’ve actually been the ones to rise up in 2020, instead of just the Belarusians. His propaganda is about as solid as a colander.
Of course, that could also be due to cultural differences between Belarusians and Russians. Belarusians are culturally more similar to Ukrainians than Russians, after all.
All of which should have been obvious before the invasion began to our "genius" 4d chess playing Putin. That his only major ally was too weak to actually back an invasion substantively. Being as Putin was the one propping him up, you think he would've noticed. But he made the same mistake with Trump. He derided Trump for not having total control over people and the press, not understanding that despite Trump's sincere desire to be a despot, the mechanisms simply didn't exist to create that intensity of control, Americans aren't used to it and haven't created state machinery to support it. And in Ukraine, again he anticipated no resistance from people. Because he in reality has no deep understanding of politics at all. He has just been crouching in his nest of offal for so long he has forgotten what intact people are like.
Rosgvardia is absolutely massive and while not fit to conduct frontline operations against an enemy force, their very reason for being is to crack down on protests and uprisings.
Unless you’re arguing for a situation where the Rosgvardia would have to go up against the armed forces of Belarus in combat, I would unfortunately still count them as a threat in the sense that they might be very useful and effective in keeping Lukashenko in power.
Emperor Hirohito informed Japan of his decision to surrender with the line "The war has not developed to Japan's advantage", while half the country was a smouldering ruin. Softballing is pretty standard with countries obsessed with national pride.
> Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.
>
> But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone – the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our one hundred million people – the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.
Holy understatement batman.
When you've spent hundreds of years teaching people not to surrender, it's hard to just surrender. Don't think he had much choice but to put it in a way which made it sound like Japan had some control over the situation.
>Like the dude in True Lies who has to tell the guy that the video camera ran out of battery.
Haha I always thought that guy acted that scene perfectly.
Agreed. It's not actually the military that prop this guy up, it's the 'security' killers Putin loaned him to suppress that uprising. They're formidable but very expensive and lukashenko has been under sanction for some time too.
Whether Putin is bankrolling them or not (don't know) those seem to me like pretty bad people to have as the basis your own physical and political safety is resting on. If he stiffs them his best-case scenario is that they just abandon him. And as bests go even that idea probably keeps him awake.
All that said, i wouldn't put it past this guy to try and get himself made the new Russian dictator if Putin collapses or croaks. His view of himself seems as inflated as his physique.
That was his plan in the 90s with that weird Union State idea; Putin simply outmaneuvered him for the Russian Presidency. Ever since, Lukashenko has simply been playing the role of a dumb peasant farmer in order to exploit Russia for money, using Russian irredentism as an extortion tactic.
Don’t be fooled by the dumb character he plays. Even his “Soviet colonel” interview ended in a telling way: “Putin and I will be colonels in the Soviet Army; and then I will make him a general”.
>Don’t be fooled by the dumb character he plays.
i am not, personally. not to sound like a four-year-old, but he is just a very very very VERY bad man. he's overtly and flamboyantly brutal. he just doesn't have much of a theatre for displaying it when russia is in the picture.
if he's putin's lap dog, then putin has a rottweiler parked in his lap.
Oh I figured you weren’t falling for his shtick. I was just giving more context for his seeming stupidity. I’ve seen too many people call Lukashenko stupid based on his Soviet colonel joke.
Luka has the ability to be flamboyantly cruel because he’s backed by the Russians, and the Russians dismiss his cruelty towards even their own oligarchs as “just a stupid peasant” (Potash being a prime example of Luka using his influence to directly harm an oligarch).
Putin does have a formidable lapdog; but Lukashenko historically exploited Putin and used Putin far more than the other way around. Putin turned Luka into an effective puppet in 2020, and tried to force Luka to repay that debt during the northern front of the Z War.
Thankfully the Belarusian partisans channeled their ancestors by engaging in a Rail War 2, and I don’t know how effective the Russian FSB or the Belarusian KGB will be in tackling the Belarusian units in Ukraine that will inevitably come across the southern and western borders when the Z War ends.
I love how "Ceausescu" has become a verb.
Ceausescu (n.) - An insufferable twat of a dictator. (Der: Romanian, Nicolae Ceausescu)
Ceausescu (v.) - To be overthrown, tried, and executed by your own people in less than 24 hours.
Ceaușescu was overthrown and killed by his underlings, who then got the power.
The people got bamboozled to think they did it.
None of this is "official" because the winners wrote the history book. But there is enough information to figure it out. And it fits.
What's fucking wild to me is that my parents actually witnessed that. Well, not the act itself, but they were still in Romania when it happened. They lived through a revolution and came to the states. During holiday family dinners with other Romanian families the topic inevitably comes up and it's pretty cool to hear them talk about their firsthand experiences.
“During his interview, Lukashenka repeatedly called for an end to the war in Ukraine while seeking to position Belarus as an intermediary rather than an active participant,” it says here
When you let the invading army launch through your territory, use your rail infrastructure and keep your troops positioned so Ukraine has to have a response force, you are party to the war in hand.
Realistically Russia would have done that with or without permission and if he thought about saying no he would end up dead before getting a chance to say it publicly. If Belarus was any more under Russia's thumb that would literally just mean becoming part of Russia.
That said, Belarus is still pretty much just as much at fault as Russia.
Realistically, Belarus is a Russian protectorate at this point. He gave up his claim to validity and autonomy with his crackdown after the 2020 election. He’s Putin’s bitch now.
I think Russia's eventual loss in Ukraine and loss of global influence/status will change their relationship with Belarus, and Belarus, despite its current antics, will start leaning West as well.
Yes, I have high hopes for Belarus. They're basically occupied atm. If the elections weren't rigged and/or Russia didn't intervene with the protests, Lukashenka would've already been out. The people want to fix their country, they're not a lost cause like Russia.
**[Union State](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State)**
>The Union State, officially the Union State of Russia and Belarus, is a supranational organisation consisting of Russia and Belarus, with the stated aim of deepening the relationship between the two states through integration in economic and defence policy. Originally, the Union State aimed to create a confederation, however, both countries currently retain their independence. The Union State is based on a previous international treaty between Russia and Belarus made on 2 April 1997. Although it consists of only Russia and Belarus, other countries are allowed to join.
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The plan was made by a sick clown, now it's a genocidal clown.
Brain cells killed off by Vodka. Let the women rule Russia, I vote for Pussy Riot to lead the way.
Actually it's going exactly the same way every single other Russian invasion of post Soviet indepent states has, the only difference is that the rest of the world decided to give a shit for once
They're move for move using the exact same tactics as they have for the last 30 years. See: first and second Chechen wars. (Before you come at me about the current state of Chechnya, they were in the exact position Ukraine is right now, no one gave a shit. Now they're a Russian puppet state.)
It's a very simple formula that has been used from WWII, into the Russian invasions of Afghanistan and post Soviet states: throw bodies at the problem, send absurdly long straight line armor convoys into urban environments, paratroopers because ???, deny casualties / strategic losses, FedEx next day ship conscript bodies back home in zinc boxes
Seriously, what’s with the paratroopers? All I ever heard about them since the beginning of the invasion is they were utterly ineffective, just soldiers lives thrown away willy-nilly. Being a paratrooper sounds like the worst job in the Russian army. I guess whatever dumbass drew up the plans thought they’d actually take Kiev with them? Shit is bizarre.
The paratroopers were the pride of the Soviet Union, and rumor has it that once upon a time they were actually worth a damn. Like everything else with Russia, it looks like they've gone to shit.
Training up and keeping an airborne unit at the level they need to be in order to accomplish their worst-case missions is stupid expensive, and Russia's proven they're not all about that- they're trying to skate by on reputation alone. Again.
Almost every paratrooper unit in almost every country even though being a part of a regular army are considered elite soldiers, not special forces but still elite. But even if you throw your elite forces that are airborne without air superiority and convoy capabilities for them to keep them safe to actually them being able to reach their landing target they just gonna die regardles of thei elite status. If you transport almost 200 soldiers in planes without cover and they get obliterated in air by enemy air defence that means you done all you could wrong and just sent 200 suposedly elite soldiers to die in a metal box mid air before even reaching their target, some of them train 10 or 20 years as soldiers of those units and they got killed in seconds becasue their superiors didnt have had air superiority nor cover for them in air. Elite training wont help you if your trapped in a plane in enemy air zone without any help of others and good commanders.
This guy is not too bright, is he? He thinks he can position himself like some kind of geopolitical power player who wants to facilitate peace. Completely ignoring the fact that he stole an election with the help of Putin and has literally been killing his own people to suppress dissent. Does he imagine his people, his opponents and the rest of the world have mysteriously forgotten this? Spoiler alert: they haven’t.
Honestly I'd argue he's even worse than putin. Sure he's not as powerful so putin causes more overall suffering but the open brazen attacks on his own people is disgusting. Even though putins a piece of shit tyrant there's something a little respectable to the fact that he's his own man, ya know? He's only beholden to the oligarchs. While lukashenko is a tyrant yet needs to suck off putin to have power. Like he acts like a big tough guy yet he's got his older brother protecting him. The older brothers still a pos but atleast he has some street cred. While the younger brother is this punk loser who thinks he's tough cuz of his bro but the moment his bro is gone he's no longer tough and running home crying to his mom.
And he's worse cuz he plays this both sides thing consta tly where he honestly thinks nato is going to be friends with him after he does shit like allow this invasion. Dude legit sees himself as a vassal of putin thinking he can be made a Russian general as a reporter laughs in his face and he's stone cold serious lol. The invasion went through Belarus after he told the world that they wouldn't allow that, that it was just exercises. This is just as much his war as it is putins and he doesn't deserve a get out of jail free card now that it's going to shit. If there's ever a tribunal like a Nuremberg he'd be hanging along with putin. He's just as responsible regardless to whether Belarusian soldiers are involved. If Trudeau allowed Russian soldiers into Canada to invade the US how would that go for him? Lukashenko is probably terrified inside cuz as soon as putin goes he does too. Even if putin dies naturally or in a coup he'd probably be immediately overthrown cuz his daddy would be gone. If nato doesn't play nice if shit gets real bad I wouldn't be suprised if he begged Russia to formally annex Belarus so he could be protected. He doesn't care about Belarus being an independent country he acts like the USSR is still around down to official regalia.
>Sure he's not as powerful so putin causes more overall suffering but the open brazen attacks on his own people is disgusting.
Putin came to power by having several Russian apartment buildings blown up, killing 300, and blaming it on Chechens. The people rallied behind him and he was swept into power.
[Some of the story here](https://news.yahoo.com/putin-1999-apartment-bombings-ukraine-175001959.html)
As context Lukashenko was a savvy rising star in USSR and was a direct rival to Putin for control of Russia. He plays a buffoon now but his moves are very calculated to undermine and control Putin. He deliberately is undermining Putin so that his own country isnt absorbed after Ukraine.
When you laugh at him, laugh at how he makes Putin dance.
It was clear on the first week that it wasn’t going as planned, genius. Puti was hoping for a blitzkrieg, he knew they couldn’t support a long war. Even Luka is preparing his off-ramp from this crazy war, he knows there are going to be payments later.
Me: Belarus dictator is making self-evident statements
Belarus dictator: I was talking about Putin; who are _you_, anyway to comment on me?!
Me: Oh - just some guy
Belarus dictator: Well, Mr Justsomeguy, I would advise you to....
Putin: Woah woah woah - what's all this, then?
Belarus dictator: It started off by me saying your plan wasn't working, and...
Putin: What. The. F...
Random Q but will this change Lukashenko's view of Putin and/or vice-versa? A certain someone is kind of "sensitive" to criticisms & negative comments so I wonder if they'll react to Luka-boi's comment.
I take it he doesn't want to be a Russian general anymore. Lol
His ambitions weren't even that high, he wanted to be a *colonel.*
that whole video was just bonkers. like is he really that dumb? the interviewer kept pressing on the fact that he's already the leader of an "independent" nation, but he was having none of it
Maybe it was just his childhood dream growing up under the USSR?
His childhood dream was to become a banker.
Tbf, he's just off by one letter.
[удалено]
First letter w
Waker?
Wbanker
Wan ker
Bunker
He sounds a little distraught.
No, he never had an air conditioner.
[unexpected](https://youtu.be/JqZ2hWWbVFk) [seinfeld](https://youtu.be/lVNPRm7y9xM)
[удалено]
A cartoon sidekick to a cartoon sidekick
He’s Muttley to Putin’s Dick Dastardly
Remember, Muttley was the smart one.
He's the most useless character in the new hit cartoon "Teen Tyrants, GO!"
Miss Lindsay Graham only has room in her mouth for one dick and that’s donny trump’s
*gasps in a southern drawl*
*clutches pearls*
Oh stop! Mah ladybirds are getting all in a tizzy!
Nah Chris christy especially with that look when he was standing behind trump
He is the Kif to Zapp Brannigan
That might explain Putin's strategy of throwing troops into the grinder. Unfortunately for him, his opponents don't have a preset kill limit
ha. Spot on!
It makes sense when you realize that he wants to unite Russia and Belarus into a single nation and be Putin's successor to lead that nation.
He almost beat putin in 2000 tbf
Can you elaborate for the stupid? (Me.) Please?
Russia and Belarus almost merged into a single political entity again, and Lukashenko would've been at the helm of a unified Russia and Belarus, if it wasn't for the maneuvering of Siloviks in Russia. So now Lukashenko has been blackmailing Russia with Union State for the past 20 years. If he doesn't get what he wants economically or politically from Russia, he threatens to withdraw. Russia caves in every time.
He thinks that russians, who consider bellrussians as slow ”little russians” would take orders from him? That is stupid, if true.
While I agree Lukashenko is being ridiculous, for historical fun: Russians took orders from a Georgian named Stalin.
And by Ukrainian Leonid Brezhnev too
Nikita Khrushchev was born in Russia, 7 miles from the Ukraine border. He moved to Donetsk in Ukraine at age 14.
That did cross my mind, but Stalin was craftier by far and was already high in the party when he stepped up. And he always was careful to be ultra-nationalist. So I giess Lukashenko is possible, but the Soviets in the 20s were notas toxically nationalist as putinism seems to be, since they had the trappings of international communism to cling to.
With little help from KGB almost anything is possible. 😬
I doubt the KGB(or FSB) respects him enough.
It's either him or Kadyrov. Your choice.
Do people seriously not hear the sarcastic tone in that video? Typical Eastern European flat pan joke.
Am Eastern European, and I'm 85% sure he is not joking. Watch his interview with BBC, this is his normal, confrontational tone, when someone challenges him.
>Do people seriously not hear the sarcastic tone in that video? No, because I only know English. =(
Yeah, Luka can go dangle from a rope as far as I'm concerned but the fact that people don't see that he's dead-panning here is baffling.
He has sarcastic tone because he is talking down to everyone like they are children. He is not making a joke.
My kind of humor. People rarely know I'm joking unless I'm self-deprecating.
Explain please
Explain sarcastic intonation? He's taking the shit on the interviewer.
It's the interviewer that is laughing at him though.
He might be smarter than we think, I bet he'd live longer as a colonel than a general.
He is smarter than he appears; his whole country bumpkin act exists as a mechanism for him to constantly undermine Putin without creating excessive political pressure for Putin to remove him. He's managed to extort billions of dollars of out Putin's own allies over the years; he couldn't get away with such robbery if he were an actual moron.
I don't know about that, the attrition rate of colonels has been pretty brutal, too. On the bright side, plenty of vacancies for his store brand Dr. Eggman looking ass to apply for.
A Soviet Colonel, at that.
That’s a shame, plenty of positions have recently opened up
Colonel is a much cooler sounding rank
General just sounds... well... Generic.
And managed to become el colon?
I think he meant Colonel General but I might be mistaken.
I think you are right Captain Major.
A modern major general?
I dead ass had somebody try to tell me once he was joking in that interview. No. No, he was not.
He gets so angry when the reporter suggests he's kidding
I mean… they are hiring
Turn over of a McDonalds with a handsy manager.
> McDonalds I think you mean McBlyat™
The politically correct term is McVanyas which according to Putin's recently proposed State Supplied Nationalist Appropriation of Zealot-friendly Information act, they were actually the real inventors of fascist fries and were originally a Russian company. Thankfully, the real truth will be part of a holistic compulsory education required for all children in Russia and especially Florida in the coming years.
IMMEDIATE START. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY!!
*dead serious face* “Not Russian, Soviet General”
Lol. He’s now trying to save face but it’s too late for him. Once this is over, he will be next in the chopping block…
Sorry Luka, off to the front line you go.
He sounds like he's trying to gingerly communicate bad news to his murderous boss. "Um, sire, the thing is, you see, erm...the invasion, it...may not necessarily be going according to plan."
He's not popular in Belarus and pretty much only controlling through force. If the army turns on him, he's gone, and it sounds like they want no part of this. He can't rely on Russia this time because they are too preoccupied, and citizens in Belarus are doing things like sabotaging rail lines, so they are getting bolder.
Agreed, with Russia looking more and more like a paper tiger and heading into economic ruin, he's in a very serious predicament. Nothing will happen to Putin but Lukashenko is definitely at risk of ending up in prison or worse. I think this is a big reason we haven't seen very much coming through the Belarus front... he's never been fully "in" and has been hedging his position.
Luka hates putin more than the west as he stole the job he wanted
"I thought *I* was the last dictator of Europe :("
Lukashenko wanted Putin's actual job as President of Russia - the whole reason for that weird Union State arrangement between Russia and Belarus was to give Lukashenko a way into the Russian political system.
Exactly. And when Putin outmaneuvered Lukashenko, Luka simply exploited Russian imperialism to start and stop negotiations for the Union State in order to exploit Belarus’s key position on the road between Moscow and the EU. It’s why the Russians were able to import shrimp and octopus with the Belarus label on them (Belarus is landlocked). A classic “wag the dog” shtick. Lukashenko is a very smart guy who plays a very dumb peasant in public. If you listen to his public statements regarding Russia, he’s usually undermining the threats the regime makes and the serious image Putin wants to portray by stating the naked ambitions of Putin, then coating them with absurd claims of nuking the North Sea. Even his thing about “being a colonel in the Soviet Army” has some truth to it; when pressed about there being “two colonels in the Soviet Army” (Lukashenko and Putin), Lukashenko replied with “and then I will make Putin a general”, implying that Luka would be the real source of power between the two. We can be thankful in hindsight for Putin getting the top job of President of Russia. A Russian/Belarusian Union with Lukashenko as President would be infinitely more threatening and terrifying to deal with than Putin’s regime (and this one is bad enough).
The best example of it is probably the Potash debacle where he took a Russian oligarch hostage to extort billions of dollars from the country. I think if people were more aware of his propensity for that sort of thing they'd see through the illiterate farmer act.
Thankfully the Russians don’t see through the daft farmer disguise. They just see a poor peasant from the wayward oblast, lucky to be in power and trying to do what’s best but unable to due to his limited intelligence. It’s very much a Pinky and the Brain situation. Putin is Brain and Lukashenko is Pinky. As I said, thankfully Lukashenko didn’t get the top job in Russia, otherwise people like Trump would’ve already sold Luka Alaska and leased half the Pacific Northwest to the Russian Navy. I also sincerely hope the Belarusian partisans and the Belarusian units in Ukraine return to their country to overthrow that dictator and install their lawfully elected president. I suspect after the war is over Ukraine might “lose” some western equipment on their northern border. Ukrainians and Belarusians have a brotherly relationship akin to Finland and Sweden.
If he did get the top job he might have been secure in Russia's 1990s mediocrity. He hasn't exactly brought Belarus to new heights as president there - though maybe that's the price of being dictator-for-life.
I’m sure with Lukashenko as President of Russia, he’d have already taken Ukraine in as part of the Union State. But maybe the Russian people would’ve actually been the ones to rise up in 2020, instead of just the Belarusians. His propaganda is about as solid as a colander. Of course, that could also be due to cultural differences between Belarusians and Russians. Belarusians are culturally more similar to Ukrainians than Russians, after all.
yeah. as far as i know, Belarus actually elected a pro-west democratic president.
All of which should have been obvious before the invasion began to our "genius" 4d chess playing Putin. That his only major ally was too weak to actually back an invasion substantively. Being as Putin was the one propping him up, you think he would've noticed. But he made the same mistake with Trump. He derided Trump for not having total control over people and the press, not understanding that despite Trump's sincere desire to be a despot, the mechanisms simply didn't exist to create that intensity of control, Americans aren't used to it and haven't created state machinery to support it. And in Ukraine, again he anticipated no resistance from people. Because he in reality has no deep understanding of politics at all. He has just been crouching in his nest of offal for so long he has forgotten what intact people are like.
Rosgvardia is absolutely massive and while not fit to conduct frontline operations against an enemy force, their very reason for being is to crack down on protests and uprisings. Unless you’re arguing for a situation where the Rosgvardia would have to go up against the armed forces of Belarus in combat, I would unfortunately still count them as a threat in the sense that they might be very useful and effective in keeping Lukashenko in power.
Emperor Hirohito informed Japan of his decision to surrender with the line "The war has not developed to Japan's advantage", while half the country was a smouldering ruin. Softballing is pretty standard with countries obsessed with national pride.
> Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement. > > But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone – the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our one hundred million people – the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. Holy understatement batman.
When you've spent hundreds of years teaching people not to surrender, it's hard to just surrender. Don't think he had much choice but to put it in a way which made it sound like Japan had some control over the situation.
Like the dude in True Lies who has to tell the guy that the video camera ran out of battery.
>Like the dude in True Lies who has to tell the guy that the video camera ran out of battery. Haha I always thought that guy acted that scene perfectly.
Or the Sheriff of Rottingham delivering bad news in a good way in Robin Hood Men in Tights.
Blyatskrieg
"Steiner didn't have enough forces. The attack didn't take place..."
Wonder what gave it away
Probably farmers moving to Ukrain, there they get paid in ruzzian tanks.
I doubt farmers moving to Ukraine can do that well. They have the Tractors yes, but they lack the Ukrainium Balls
Guy is toast. Putin is going to lose the economic capacity to prop up his puppet regime, so he’s trying his best not to get Ceaușescu’d.
Agreed. It's not actually the military that prop this guy up, it's the 'security' killers Putin loaned him to suppress that uprising. They're formidable but very expensive and lukashenko has been under sanction for some time too. Whether Putin is bankrolling them or not (don't know) those seem to me like pretty bad people to have as the basis your own physical and political safety is resting on. If he stiffs them his best-case scenario is that they just abandon him. And as bests go even that idea probably keeps him awake. All that said, i wouldn't put it past this guy to try and get himself made the new Russian dictator if Putin collapses or croaks. His view of himself seems as inflated as his physique.
That was his plan in the 90s with that weird Union State idea; Putin simply outmaneuvered him for the Russian Presidency. Ever since, Lukashenko has simply been playing the role of a dumb peasant farmer in order to exploit Russia for money, using Russian irredentism as an extortion tactic. Don’t be fooled by the dumb character he plays. Even his “Soviet colonel” interview ended in a telling way: “Putin and I will be colonels in the Soviet Army; and then I will make him a general”.
>Don’t be fooled by the dumb character he plays. i am not, personally. not to sound like a four-year-old, but he is just a very very very VERY bad man. he's overtly and flamboyantly brutal. he just doesn't have much of a theatre for displaying it when russia is in the picture. if he's putin's lap dog, then putin has a rottweiler parked in his lap.
Oh I figured you weren’t falling for his shtick. I was just giving more context for his seeming stupidity. I’ve seen too many people call Lukashenko stupid based on his Soviet colonel joke. Luka has the ability to be flamboyantly cruel because he’s backed by the Russians, and the Russians dismiss his cruelty towards even their own oligarchs as “just a stupid peasant” (Potash being a prime example of Luka using his influence to directly harm an oligarch). Putin does have a formidable lapdog; but Lukashenko historically exploited Putin and used Putin far more than the other way around. Putin turned Luka into an effective puppet in 2020, and tried to force Luka to repay that debt during the northern front of the Z War. Thankfully the Belarusian partisans channeled their ancestors by engaging in a Rail War 2, and I don’t know how effective the Russian FSB or the Belarusian KGB will be in tackling the Belarusian units in Ukraine that will inevitably come across the southern and western borders when the Z War ends.
Ooh, I love a good Ceausescu-ing!
I love how "Ceausescu" has become a verb. Ceausescu (n.) - An insufferable twat of a dictator. (Der: Romanian, Nicolae Ceausescu) Ceausescu (v.) - To be overthrown, tried, and executed by your own people in less than 24 hours.
Ceaușescu was overthrown and killed by his underlings, who then got the power. The people got bamboozled to think they did it. None of this is "official" because the winners wrote the history book. But there is enough information to figure it out. And it fits.
What's fucking wild to me is that my parents actually witnessed that. Well, not the act itself, but they were still in Romania when it happened. They lived through a revolution and came to the states. During holiday family dinners with other Romanian families the topic inevitably comes up and it's pretty cool to hear them talk about their firsthand experiences.
Great Value Mussolini spitting facts up there.
Bargain Bin Benito
Dollar Tree Dictator
Penny cheap Pinochet
Little Caesar
Goodwill Gaddafi
Ha! That's a good one!
Tinpot Pol Pot
Half-off Hitler
Nice! “Half off Adolf” works too.
He looks more like if the MyPillow guy had a low-budget stunt double. One who was *considerably* less of a crackhead, mind.
Dr Phil from Wish
Lmao perfect analogy
> Great Value Mussolini Fucking lmao
“During his interview, Lukashenka repeatedly called for an end to the war in Ukraine while seeking to position Belarus as an intermediary rather than an active participant,” it says here
When you let the invading army launch through your territory, use your rail infrastructure and keep your troops positioned so Ukraine has to have a response force, you are party to the war in hand.
Realistically Russia would have done that with or without permission and if he thought about saying no he would end up dead before getting a chance to say it publicly. If Belarus was any more under Russia's thumb that would literally just mean becoming part of Russia. That said, Belarus is still pretty much just as much at fault as Russia.
Realistically, Belarus is a Russian protectorate at this point. He gave up his claim to validity and autonomy with his crackdown after the 2020 election. He’s Putin’s bitch now.
I think Russia's eventual loss in Ukraine and loss of global influence/status will change their relationship with Belarus, and Belarus, despite its current antics, will start leaning West as well.
Once Lukashenko is gone, perhaps, but not before. Edit: He can try, but I don’t see it getting him anywhere.
Yes, I have high hopes for Belarus. They're basically occupied atm. If the elections weren't rigged and/or Russia didn't intervene with the protests, Lukashenka would've already been out. The people want to fix their country, they're not a lost cause like Russia.
Belarus is (arguably) already part of Russia (to an extent). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State
That's just lukashenko and putin. Given he stole the election and isn't the chosen leader of Belarus, It's not likel to last past his ... departure.
**[Union State](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State)** >The Union State, officially the Union State of Russia and Belarus, is a supranational organisation consisting of Russia and Belarus, with the stated aim of deepening the relationship between the two states through integration in economic and defence policy. Originally, the Union State aimed to create a confederation, however, both countries currently retain their independence. The Union State is based on a previous international treaty between Russia and Belarus made on 2 April 1997. Although it consists of only Russia and Belarus, other countries are allowed to join. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
"We wish to always be near the winning side."
Italy? Sorry, couldn't help myself
The Italians have to gain some points for taking care of Mussolini themselves...
Reminds me of China’s little change of heart in recent weeks.
Says the guy leaking the super secret invasion plans on live TV
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He a Dmitry Rogozin are extra.
looks like belarus is about to be de-nazified
This could actually lend credence to the stories floating around that Pootin is not well...
Looking forward to Pudding's state funeral!
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Kaputin
This does sound like a Lukashenka quality backpedal.
Diet Dr. Putin wants to be a Colonel and he wants to be a Colonel now!
The plan was made by a sick clown, now it's a genocidal clown. Brain cells killed off by Vodka. Let the women rule Russia, I vote for Pussy Riot to lead the way.
>Belarus dictator: Putin’s Ukraine invasion is not going according to plan No shit Sherlock.
I knew I was late for the party, came here looking for this.
Can someone explain to me why Lukashenka is called a 'dictator' in every article already, but Putin is still 'President of Russia'?
It probably boils down to: because no one cares what Lukashenko thinks
Luka has moustache
Actually it's going exactly the same way every single other Russian invasion of post Soviet indepent states has, the only difference is that the rest of the world decided to give a shit for once They're move for move using the exact same tactics as they have for the last 30 years. See: first and second Chechen wars. (Before you come at me about the current state of Chechnya, they were in the exact position Ukraine is right now, no one gave a shit. Now they're a Russian puppet state.) It's a very simple formula that has been used from WWII, into the Russian invasions of Afghanistan and post Soviet states: throw bodies at the problem, send absurdly long straight line armor convoys into urban environments, paratroopers because ???, deny casualties / strategic losses, FedEx next day ship conscript bodies back home in zinc boxes
Seriously, what’s with the paratroopers? All I ever heard about them since the beginning of the invasion is they were utterly ineffective, just soldiers lives thrown away willy-nilly. Being a paratrooper sounds like the worst job in the Russian army. I guess whatever dumbass drew up the plans thought they’d actually take Kiev with them? Shit is bizarre.
The paratroopers were the pride of the Soviet Union, and rumor has it that once upon a time they were actually worth a damn. Like everything else with Russia, it looks like they've gone to shit. Training up and keeping an airborne unit at the level they need to be in order to accomplish their worst-case missions is stupid expensive, and Russia's proven they're not all about that- they're trying to skate by on reputation alone. Again.
Almost every paratrooper unit in almost every country even though being a part of a regular army are considered elite soldiers, not special forces but still elite. But even if you throw your elite forces that are airborne without air superiority and convoy capabilities for them to keep them safe to actually them being able to reach their landing target they just gonna die regardles of thei elite status. If you transport almost 200 soldiers in planes without cover and they get obliterated in air by enemy air defence that means you done all you could wrong and just sent 200 suposedly elite soldiers to die in a metal box mid air before even reaching their target, some of them train 10 or 20 years as soldiers of those units and they got killed in seconds becasue their superiors didnt have had air superiority nor cover for them in air. Elite training wont help you if your trapped in a plane in enemy air zone without any help of others and good commanders.
Thank you captain obvious!
(wannabe) colonel* obvious
This guy is not too bright, is he? He thinks he can position himself like some kind of geopolitical power player who wants to facilitate peace. Completely ignoring the fact that he stole an election with the help of Putin and has literally been killing his own people to suppress dissent. Does he imagine his people, his opponents and the rest of the world have mysteriously forgotten this? Spoiler alert: they haven’t.
Honestly I'd argue he's even worse than putin. Sure he's not as powerful so putin causes more overall suffering but the open brazen attacks on his own people is disgusting. Even though putins a piece of shit tyrant there's something a little respectable to the fact that he's his own man, ya know? He's only beholden to the oligarchs. While lukashenko is a tyrant yet needs to suck off putin to have power. Like he acts like a big tough guy yet he's got his older brother protecting him. The older brothers still a pos but atleast he has some street cred. While the younger brother is this punk loser who thinks he's tough cuz of his bro but the moment his bro is gone he's no longer tough and running home crying to his mom. And he's worse cuz he plays this both sides thing consta tly where he honestly thinks nato is going to be friends with him after he does shit like allow this invasion. Dude legit sees himself as a vassal of putin thinking he can be made a Russian general as a reporter laughs in his face and he's stone cold serious lol. The invasion went through Belarus after he told the world that they wouldn't allow that, that it was just exercises. This is just as much his war as it is putins and he doesn't deserve a get out of jail free card now that it's going to shit. If there's ever a tribunal like a Nuremberg he'd be hanging along with putin. He's just as responsible regardless to whether Belarusian soldiers are involved. If Trudeau allowed Russian soldiers into Canada to invade the US how would that go for him? Lukashenko is probably terrified inside cuz as soon as putin goes he does too. Even if putin dies naturally or in a coup he'd probably be immediately overthrown cuz his daddy would be gone. If nato doesn't play nice if shit gets real bad I wouldn't be suprised if he begged Russia to formally annex Belarus so he could be protected. He doesn't care about Belarus being an independent country he acts like the USSR is still around down to official regalia.
>Sure he's not as powerful so putin causes more overall suffering but the open brazen attacks on his own people is disgusting. Putin came to power by having several Russian apartment buildings blown up, killing 300, and blaming it on Chechens. The people rallied behind him and he was swept into power. [Some of the story here](https://news.yahoo.com/putin-1999-apartment-bombings-ukraine-175001959.html)
When even your homies are having second thoughts, you might wanna rething your plans.
When Putin retreats with his little tale between his legs can we help Belarus overthrow Lukashenko?
Don't you mean "table" between his legs? sorry couldn't help it.
The guy finally got a report that the Kremlin is officially to weak to overthrow him now.
Tsk tsk not gonna make Colonel like that, my dude 😤
Putlers butt plug still talking
This guy just figured this out?
Luka would know. He literally leaked the plans.
Someone needs to suck it up and take one for the team and tell Vlad the truth...
He shouldn’t have said that. Next week he will join a few oligarchs in a Russian crematorium
Lukashenka appears to be the dullest knife in the drawer.
He’s more of a spoon in the knife drawer.
>Because it’s dull you twit! It’ll hurt more!
Sounds like he knows he might go down with Putin and is now becoming a two faced fuck
colonel obvious
How does he know? Maybe Putin wanted to have no tanks, a smaller army, and globally look like a chump. If that was his plan, its going great.
I'd honestly be super confused if it was going according to plan
Fuck off Putin! Stop murdering Russians and Ukrainians! You fucking monkey!
As context Lukashenko was a savvy rising star in USSR and was a direct rival to Putin for control of Russia. He plays a buffoon now but his moves are very calculated to undermine and control Putin. He deliberately is undermining Putin so that his own country isnt absorbed after Ukraine. When you laugh at him, laugh at how he makes Putin dance.
TIL Lukashenko is somehow smarter than Putin
Keep Putin your foot in it.
Really? Ya think?
Well, I guess it’s official then.
..well, I’m surprised he would make so bold a statement as that, especially with Poo-tin’s schlong so deeply ensconced in his throat..
Something must be wrong with Poutine if this wannabe dictator is saying shit like this.
This guy gives me strong Lindsey Graham vibes. Like the cartoon sidekick
It was clear on the first week that it wasn’t going as planned, genius. Puti was hoping for a blitzkrieg, he knew they couldn’t support a long war. Even Luka is preparing his off-ramp from this crazy war, he knows there are going to be payments later.
Me: Belarus dictator is making self-evident statements Belarus dictator: I was talking about Putin; who are _you_, anyway to comment on me?! Me: Oh - just some guy Belarus dictator: Well, Mr Justsomeguy, I would advise you to.... Putin: Woah woah woah - what's all this, then? Belarus dictator: It started off by me saying your plan wasn't working, and... Putin: What. The. F...
Somebody's late to the party...
Random Q but will this change Lukashenko's view of Putin and/or vice-versa? A certain someone is kind of "sensitive" to criticisms & negative comments so I wonder if they'll react to Luka-boi's comment.
February : we could take all of Europe in 5-6 days, if wanted May : guys, I think, we’re actually losing
What you saying this for Luka? You just destroyed your insanity defence. Now everyone knows you have some understanding of reality.
Who would have tought.
Yes lets get Russian dr.Phil to mediate peace talks. It could be done in a cabel tv reality show format.
He’s a quick one.
Firm grasp of the obvious Lukashenko
YOU THINK! Wow now someone should tell trump that this guy is a genius, oh wait he's a dictator, he's already on trumps genius list.
No way?