Ukraine Test story

by kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022 Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022 at 5:14:47pm PDT

UPDATE: Wednesday, Oct 12, 2022 · 12:17:09 AM +00:00 · kos

Can you believe it, even MORE stuff happened! This story isn’t going away!

UPDATE: Wednesday, Oct 12, 2022 · 12:16:16 AM +00:00 · kos

Here is an update of stuff that happened.

In the first few months of the war, the news was rampant with Belarus is joining the war hysteria. Terrorist Vladimir Putin was clearly leaning on Belorussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to join the war, and Lukashenko was happy to pretend, time and time again, that he was ready to do his master’s bidding. Yet he never followed through.

It was clear that Lukashenko had zero interest in joining the war. His army is only 20,000 strong, and if you thought Russia has been a hot mess, Lukashenko’s army was far worse—it’s essentially designed to keep him in power and little else. He would dramatically move his sad forces here and there, like pawns on a chess board. But when Putin pressed the heaviest, Lukashenko would make some stupid declaration like “Russia is right, NATO is a threat, Poland is about to invade!” and rush his troops to his western border. A stupefied Putin could only watch helplessly.

Russian scholar Kamil Galeev wrote this great thread on Lukashenko, arguing that while he plays the buffoon in public, he’s actually a master manipulator, able to keep Putin on a leash for over 25 years.