GEOPOLITICAL TRENDS OF BELARUS ON THE BACKGROUND OF THE PUBLIC, MILITARY AND POLITICAL CRISIS IN UKRAINE

Morgatskyi V.

Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Lviv, Ukraine

Abstract:

 

 

The author here tries to characterize main features of Belarus geopolitical trends from 2014 to the present day. For example, it is written about the factors of “soft belarusization.” The investigator also singled out major social and political events in Belarus which demonstrate sovereign political decisions taken by the government, influenced by the transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe. Researcher dedicates the part of the article to the geopolitical interests of major players – Russia, Western Europe, USA and China – in the context of foreign policy of Belarus. Also he analyzed this country’s positions in the interstate integration projects like Union State, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Tashkent pact. Then the author dwells on the peculiarities of economic relations between Russia and Belarus in 2015-2016. In addition, the explorer here highlights the details of the re-export of goods between Belarus and Russian Federation. Relations with the West are overviewed on the background of the political and geographical processes after the canceling of sanctions on Belarus political elites and economic entities. The author evaluates the processes of formation of democratic values in Belarus and reducing the level of Russian impact on the republic – in the context of changing geo-strategy, the deployment of armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and the emergence of a military threat to NATO from Russia. The level of the influence of China as a player, strengthening its geopolitical and geo-economics position to enter the markets of Europe and the CIS with the prospect of the “New Silk Road”, is also examined. The author in the text explains the details of Ukraine’s security interests – in connection with the possible intervention of Russian troops from the north. Then he refers to the external trade relations of Belarus with the major geopolitical players and Ukraine. Also the role of Russia military facilities in Belarus in the issue of security of the North Atlantic Alliance and Ukraine is analyzed.  Finally, the explorer predicts the ways of further geopolitical development of Belarus and assesses the prospects for the formation of Belarus neutrality.

Keywords:

geopolitics, Belarus, Russia, political and geographic choice, geo-economic dependence West, sanctions, China, multidirectional foreign policy, diversification of trade, NATO, national security, Ukraine, neutrality.

Language:

ukrainian

DOI: http://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2721.2017.66.27

References:

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Suggested citation:

Morgatskyi V.  (2017) Geopolitical trends of Belarus on the background of the public, military and political crisis in Ukraine. Visnyk Kyivskogo natsionalnogo universytetu, Geografiya [Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Geography], 1-2 (66-67), 155-159 (in Ukrainian, abstr. in English).