Russia developed a plan to take over Belarus, which was to be implemented by 2030.
The Russian center "Dossier" writes about it.
The document studied by the journalists is called "Strategic goals of the Russian Federation in the Belarusian direction." It was jointly developed by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, the FSB, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (MDI), and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
According to him, the Kremlinʼs global goals are to establish the dominance of the Russian language over Belarusian, to adapt Belarusian legislation to Russian and to subjugate the socio-political, commercial, scientific and cultural life of Belarus. Each of the goals is divided into tasks of different urgency — until 2022, 2025 and 2030. All measures must be implemented within the framework of the "Union State".
In addition to harmonizing trade and economic relations, Russia plans to establish control in the military-political sector of Belarus by 2030. The tasks of Russian intelligence include limiting the influence of "nationalist and pro-Western" forces, completing the reform of the Belarusian Constitution taking into account the interests of the Russian Federation, and strengthening pro-Russian attitudes among the military and political elites and among the population.
Also, the Administration of the President of Russia is going to ensure control over the information space of Belarus by the end of this decade. This will be done by increasing the number of Russian mass media in Belarus and strengthening Russian informational influence among the population. Russia is also going to introduce a simplified procedure for issuing Russian passports to Belarusian citizens "in order to create a layer of Russians interested in integration and business circles focused on the Russian market," the document says.
By 2030, Russia hopes to open points for passing the unified state exam in Belarus, as well as to open new centers of science and culture in Mogilev, Grodno and Vitebsk. Probably, journalists believe, these will be branches of "Rossotrudnichestvo", which often turn out to be a cover for Russian spies and "agents of influence".
In addition to the goals, the document also describes threats to Russiaʼs plans in Belarus. Putinʼs administration is afraid of the rapprochement of the Belarusian government with NATO and individual states — members of the alliance, the influence of "nationalist" and "pro-Western" politicians on the self-proclaimed president Alexander Lukashenko, the replacement of Russian coronavirus vaccines with American and European ones, as well as the refusal to teach in Russian.
The document was created by the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Border Cooperation, which is supervised by the Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation Dmytro Kozak. The journalists found out that the war in Ukraine slowed down the implementation of Russiaʼs plans, but did not stop it.
- The treaty between Belarus and Russia on the creation of the Union State was signed in December 1999: according to it, the countries should unite the currency, army, customs and tax systems. In 2020, mass protests broke out in Belarus, which Lukashenko suppressed by force, severed almost all ties with the West, and began negotiating with Russia. But she focused her work on the implementation of "road maps" for the integration of both countries.
- On September 9, 2021, Russia and Belarus signed all 28 integration programs. The countries will unite their gas, oil and oil products markets. The agreement on this is planned to be signed on December 1, 2023. As for the common currency, Russia and Belarus have not yet reached an agreement.