Lithuanian President Warns Russia Aims to ‘Swallow’ Belarus

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May 28 2021, 3:38 PMMay 28 2021, 5:54 PMMay 28 2021, 3:38 PMMay 28 2021, 5:54 PM

(Bloomberg) -- Russia intends to use the geopolitical situation around Belarus to further integrate the two countries, Lithuania’s president warned Friday.

“There are efforts of the Russian government to swallow Belarus as an independent state,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told Bloomberg TV Friday. “They’re quite successful at doing this.”

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is more isolated from the international community after the forced the landing of a commercial airliner to arrest a journalist and his partner last weekend, which prompted the European Union to begin work on fresh sanctions against the country.

Russia has backed Lukashenko over the past quarter century, including during a brutal crackdown on the opposition last year, even as he resisted Moscow’s push for closer economic and political union. Lukashenko is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Friday.

Nauseda said NATO should send “clear signals” from its upcoming summit in June that it is aware of this and other regional tensions and ready to address them with “corresponding measures.”

“It’s a very dangerous geopolitical process going on near the European Union border,” he said. “We should be aware of this.”