Belarus

6/26 Council on Foreign Relations reminding of the supposed incompetence of the Trump Administration in foreign policy:

For the past year, the Trump administration has been slowly renewing relations with Belarus, partly to enhance that country’s autonomy and thus diminish Russia’s ability to use Belarus to pressure NATO’s eastern flank. The warming fits a broader pattern of U.S. outreach to Armenia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus and to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, also with the goal of restricting Russia’s influence. But Washington needs to tread carefully. The challenge is to reduce Russia’s sway over Belarus without provoking Russia to formally annex the country, while preparing for that eventuality regardless.

Russian annexation would be an admission that Putin does not trust Lukashenko to be his puppet. Nor should he. Belarus' army is woefully inadequate compared to Ukraine. Belarussian reliance on Russian air defense systems after the last few days of wildly successful attacks on Russian petroleum refineries should be a hint that directly going to war with Ukraine might end badly for them. To quote Lukashenko:

In the interview, the leader went into great detail and spoke very frankly about this position.

“First, Belarus is highly vulnerable militarily should Ukraine begin attacking Belarus in the same manner it attacks Russia (we recognize this reality, so we have no desire to engage in war). Belarus is laid out like an open palm before the Ukrainian military. We are fully aware that our critical life-support systems, production facilities, and logistics hubs would come under attack. They have stated, they have already identified 500 such targets on the territory of Belarus.,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Second reason, the head of state continued, is that the Belarusian people hate wars: “We have already suffered enough throughout our history; we understand that many of our military personnel would die. For what? Why should they die?”

Third reason: if Belarus joined the war, the front line would be extended significantly. “If Russia were to attack Kiev from Belarusian territory, the front line primarily for Russia (and naturally for us) would be extended by 1,500 km along the Belarusian-Ukrainian border,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “We and the Russians would be unable to defend this sector.”