AFTER THE ELECTION: MOSCOW VIEWS ON BELARUS AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 003035

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/24/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV BO RS
SUBJECT: AFTER THE ELECTION: MOSCOW VIEWS ON BELARUS AND
LUKASHENKO

REF: A. MOSCOW 2760


B. MOSCOW 1934

C. MOSCOW 1171

Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reasons: 1.4(B/D).


1. (C) Summary. Russia's embrace of President Lukashenko's
victory in the March 19 Belarus election reflects official
Moscow's strong preference for stability in Minsk and its
belief that the status quo offers the best chance for that
stability. Contacts close to the Belarusian opposition in
Moscow say they are searching to find some positive notes in
the results, while media criticism of the sham election has
been muted. Moscow's political analysts were not surprised
by Lukashenko's victory, citing his strong popular support
and control of the system. Our contacts expect that the
Kremlin (through Gazprom) will soon renew its bid for
Beltransgaz and raise the price for Russian gas deliveries to
Belarus. Negotiations over the Russian-Belarusian Union
State will continue to limp along, remaining a low priority
for the Kremlin in the near term. As the U.S. and EU
coordinate targeted measures against Belarusian officials, we
should both reinforce our concerns to Moscow and probe for
signs of willingness to discuss future political development
in Belarus. End Summary.

Official Moscow Welcomes Lukashenko's Victory
--------------


2. (SBU) Reflecting its strong preference for stability in
Belarus and its belief that Lukashenko -- for all his
acknowledged downsides -- provides the best short-term basis
for such stability, the Russian government welcomed
Lukashenko's victory in the March 19 elections. President
Putin's March 20 congratulatory telegram to Lukashenko said
the election results reflected voters' trust in his
leadership, and Putin looked forward to "joint efforts" to
build the Union State and ensure "the onward democratic
development" of Russia and Belarus. A March 20 MFA statement
declared Belarus' presidential election "legitimate" and
consistent with recognized norms (ref A). Duma leaders such
as Communist Party leader Gennadiy Zyuganov and United
Russia's Valeriy Ryazanskiy attributed Lukashenko's huge
margin of victory to genuine popularity. Union State
Secretary Pavel Borodin said the election reflected the will

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of the Belarusian people and should be respected. LDPR
leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy expressed satisfaction there
would be "no change for the worse" in Belarus.


3. (C) Reflecting a widely held view, Security Council
Secretary Igor Ivanov told the Ambassador March 23 that he

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did not see why the U.S. was so "spun up" over Belarus, a
small country that is living in peace with its neighbors.
Lukashenko threatened no one and did not harbor terrorists or
proliferate WMD. Putin's Foreign Policy Assistant Sergey
Prikhodko took a similar line on March 24, saying that
Lukashenko -- who at least is able to control Belarus'
borders -- is less of a threat than Georgia's President
Saakashvili. He dismissed the suggestion that Lukashenko was
engaged in illicit arms exports, saying he had seen no
evidence to that effect. In a March 23 discussion, Council
on Foreign and Defense Policy head Sergey Karaganov (no
friend of Lukashenko, who he said has identified Karaganov to
Putin as his "enemy number one" in Russia) also compared
Lukashenko favorably to Saakashvili, describing both as
talented demagogues without any genuine democratic commitment
but saying that Lukashenko was more effective in running his
country and economy. Karaganov also dismissed Milinkevich as
an intelligent and good man, but not a plausible leader.


4. (C) MFA Belarus Desk Senior Counselor Marat Pavlov --
fresh from Minsk as an election observer -- elaborated on
similar themes, telling us the Belarusians had good access to
media in making electoral decisions and denying the GOB had
arrested opposition campaign figures inappropriately: they
merely "detained some hooligans." Accounting for
Lukashenko's popularity, Pavlov referred to the Belarusian
public's "statist" mentality, the government's reliable
payment of wages, and a decent standard of living -- better
on average, he said, than in many Russian provinces. Pavlov
argued that isolating Belarus politically would not help
Minsk to democratize. While the GOR has not publicly reacted
to Western criticism of the election, we were told an MFA
response was in the works.

Opposition Finds Silver Lining . . .
--------------


5. (C) ORT television's Pavel Sheremet, who maintains close
contact with Belarusian human rights activists, characterized
the opposition's mood as one of "mixed feelings." They had

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made a decent showing despite the lop-sided official results.
He described a "critical mass" of Belarusians who knew the
results were fixed, but pointed to Lukashenko's tight control
over security forces, the absence of free media, and the
elite's lack of backbone as reasons why there would be no
popular uprising. He concluded that Lukashenko would be
unbothered by any Western tongue-lashing that was not backed
up with action. Sheremet called for targeted sanctions
against a broad range of Belarusian government officials.

. . . While Media Criticism Muted
--------------


6. (C) By week's end Moscow's talking heads were still
mostly quiet about an election that had turned out generally
as they had expected. Yuriy Levada, Director of the
well-respected All-Russian Center for the Study of Public
Opinion A (VTsIOM-A),told us it was as though the election
had taken place somewhere far away, like Portugal.
International Security Center Director Aleksey Arbatov was
nearly alone in labeling the election "probably rigged" in a
recent Nezavisimaya Gazeta article and asserting that "most
ballot papers were faked." Even his criticism was tempered
by the belief that Lukashenko would have won without
resorting to Soviet-style tactics, e.g., early unmonitored
voting or the absurd 93 percent voter turnout. A Vremya
Novostey article on March 22 cited polling data from Levada's
Center to indicate Lukashenko was genuinely popular (though
the regime obviously used administrative resources
excessively) and noted that only one-fifth of the population
really shared the opposition's viewpoint.

Now to Business
--------------


7. (C) Few people we spoke to doubted that, with the
elections out of the way, Russia will turn to enhancing its
control over the Belarusian energy sector. First up is
likely to be a Gazprom bid for Beltransgaz reinforced by the
credible threat of higher -- maybe significantly higher --
prices for Russian gas. State Duma CIS Committee Chairman
Andrey Kokoshin confirmed that view in a March 23 meeting
with the Ambassador. Kokoshin said gas discussions with
Belarus are now a priority, since Putin had laid down that
marker in discussions with Lukashenko, but he expected a
"move" rather than a "leap" in gas prices. Some have even
suggested that behind Russia's strategic support for
Lukashenko lay the simple calculus that it would be less
complicated to negotiate and implement a gas deal with an
embattled autocrat (the devil Putin knows) than a gaggle of
competing interests as in Ukraine. Karaganov also said he
expected early action on the energy front, and said it will
be interesting to see whose economic interests are served by
any agreement that can be reached.


8. (C) Sheremet, referring to a Gazprom insider he knows,
said the company intends to renew its bid for Beltransgaz in
earnest the week of March 26 (while Ukraine's parliamentary
election attracts most of the media coverage in the CIS).
Reportedly, the contract is already drawn up and Belarus will
be required to pay $70/thousand cubic meters (tcm) for
Russian gas if a Beltransgaz deal goes through or
$100-120/tcm if the two sides do not reach an agreement.
Vedmosti's CIS correspondent Vasiliy Kashin said Russia would
aim to conclude the acquisition and raise its gas prices by
the end of the year, offering loans to offset the price
increases. Carnegie's Petrov believed Lukashenko will
somehow delay the Beltransgaz negotiations, as he has done in
the past, and ultimately outfox Putin.

Union State -- Going Nowhere Fast?
--------------


9. (C) No analysts we have spoken to in the last six months,
including after the election, think a Union State treaty will
soon be signed. RAO UES Chairman and former Presidential
Administration chief Aleksandr Voloshin told the Ambassador
March 22 that Putin and Lukashenko strongly mistrust each
other, and that will stall progress on the Union State for
the foreseeable future. Even the MFA's Belarus Desk has
consistently been pessimistic on the near-term prospect for a
Union State treaty. Most observers seem to have concluded
that Russian decisionmakers judge that the Union State would
bring little immediate gain while raising the hackles of the
West. It would thus be better to put the Union on the
back-burner while chasing more immediately lucrative goals,
like enhanced control over Belarus' energy sector. The GOR
thus seems content to let Union State negotiations meander on
at the working level and to measure success by signing
agreements on tax and customs harmonization, health care
benefits, and other workaday issues. Karaganov also

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dismissed the prospect of rapid forward movement on union,
saying he expected things in that area in 2011 to be much
like they are in 2006 and were in 2001.


10. (C) Strong fears of Lukashenko's demagogic appeal and
political ambitions in Russia are another reason why Russian
observers do not think the union will move quickly. Liberal
radio station Ekho Moskvy conducted a poll of Moscow
listeners on March 21 asking, "Who would you vote for to be
President of the Russian-Belarusian Union State?" Of the
nearly 6000 listeners who called in, 82 percent voted for
Lukashenko and only 18 percent for Putin. Internet voting on
the same question was less lopsided -- 39 percent chose
Lukashenko, 29 percent liked Putin, and 32 percent were
undecided. While calling Lukashenko's chances for the Union
State presidency "improbable," Carnegie's Petrov noted the
Belarusian president has a real following in Russia,
especially among ordinary Russians in the provinces and with
regional governors -- a view we have often heard before (ref
C). Voloshin concluded that Lukashenko's well-known
political aspirations in Russia would serve as a brake on any
movement toward union, with talk continuing to substitute for
movement.

Comment: Engaging Russia on Belarus
--------------


11. (C) We have made clear to the GOR over the last six
months that it would be better if the U.S. and Russia were
not on opposite sides in responding to the election results
(especially in light of the approaching G-8 summit) and that
we had hoped the GOR would assess the election on its
democratic merits. That has not happened so far. While
Russia may have encouraged Lukashenko to avoid violence
against the protesters or to provide a circumscribed space
for opposition views (DFM Karasin has told the Ambassador
that the GOR did make clear to Lukashenko that restraint was
important),in the end Moscow opted for Lukashenko in the
belief that any alternative would be worse in terms of
Russian interests.


12. (C) While our assessments of the election are thus at
odds, there are two important grounds to continue engaging
Moscow on Belarus. First, as we and the EU formulate a
coordinated response targeted against Belarusian officials
involved in election fraud and human rights abuses, we should
make clear to Moscow why we are imposing sanctions and
request that Russia not take steps to undercut these
measures, particularly financial sanctions. We have already
heard from our German colleagues that DFM Karasin has said he
would be interested in engaging with the EU and U.S. on next
steps in Belarus, which is consistent with our discussions
with him.


13. (C) More broadly, we need to probe Russia's willingness
to discuss Belarus in the post-election period. Karasin told
U/S Burns in a February 20 meeting that the Russian
government was convinced Lukashenko would have no alternative
but to pursue greater openness after the election and that
Belarus would be a prosperous state with a pluralistic
political system in five to six years. While that statement
is impossible to take at face value, it offers us an opening
to push the Russian government to spell out exactly what
objective steps would lead to this end-state. By pressing
Moscow to define what metrics it would use to measure this
development -- on civil liberties, press and academic freedom
and associational independence -- we would seek some common
ground in discussing developments in Belarus and the wider
CIS.


14. (C) Any dialogue that we have on Belarus will inevitably
be affected, however, by other issues. Karaganov said he was
in particular certain that if Ukraine is put on a fast-track
to NATO membership this year, there will be no GOR readiness
to look for possible areas of overlapping interests in
Belarus. That consideration may in any case serve as a
pretext on the Russian side for taking a hardline in any
consultations on Belarus until Moscow has a clearer sense of
the broader context of its dealings with the U.S. and Europe.
BURNS