At a recent ministerial meeting the European Union decided to retaliate against Belarus by prohibiting 31 top government officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, from traveling to Europe, on account of recent frauds in the presidential election in that country and repeated reports of human rights’ violations.

At a recent ministerial meeting the European Union decided to retaliate against Belarus by prohibiting 31 top government officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, from traveling to Europe, on account of recent frauds in the presidential election in that country and repeated reports of human rights’ violations.

Belarus, formerly known as Byelorussia and Ukraine are geographically interposed between Russia and the European Union. The EU’s easternmost member countries are Lithuania and Poland, along with Rumania, one of the next countries set to be admitted into the bloc. Belarus gained its independence from former Soviet Union in 1991, and Lukashenko was elected president in 1994, remaining in power thus far thanks to electoral frauds, police repression and the disappearance of political adversaries, press members and unionists.

There were also presidential elections in Ukraine confronting the ruling party candidate supported by Putin and a former minister who presented himself as the opposition candidate and was supported by the European Union and the US. With the victory of the first questioned under suspicions of fraud, a great mobilization, known as the “Orange Revolution”, with the political support of the EU and the US, forced a new presidential election which was won by the opposition. More than an initiative in defense of democracy, not always respected by the administrations of the countries that were part of former Soviet Union, the agenda is in fact about reducing Russia’s economic and geopolitical weight.

It seems, though, that the strategy to expand European influence to the East towards Russia and Turkey was not “negotiated with the Russians”. President Wladimir Putin, ready to alter the electoral legislation to allow him to run for a third term, uses powerful instruments to preserve his interests.

One of these is his country’s status as nuclear power and member of the UN Security Council with veto power, and the other is the fact that Russia is a vital supplier of natural gas to Germany. The new Prime Minister of Germany, Angela Merkel, has already considerably softened her positions regarding Russia, while former Chancellor, Gerard Schroeder, has just taken over the presidency of a Russian-German business consortium for natural gas transmission. Putin has just decided that the gas pipes under construction to supply Europe will not cross Ukraine in retaliation for last year’s opposition election. Another dispute that is likely to spur a lot of controversy.