Friday 21 December 2007

Will Belarus-Russian Union now go ahead?

Elements of the Russian media are speculating that Vladimir Putin might stay in power after ceasing to become Russian President by becoming the President of a new Russian-Belarussian Union state. The Kremlin has firmly denied the rumours, which in fact emanate originally from the very anti-Putin radio station “Echo Moskvy”. It claims that the union state between Belarus and Russia is to be signed in Minsk on 13th and 14th December, after many years during which the project seemed to have run into the sands.

According to the rumour, Putin would be president of the common state, the current president of Belarus would become the President of the Union Parliament and Viktor Zubkov, the current Russian premier, would become Union premier instead. [Die Welt, 7 December 2007] A Kremlin spokesman has denounced the rumours as “speculative fantasies” and indeed it is quite likely that it is but another piece of opposition–generated desinformatsiya.

---- An excerpt from John Laughland's Intelligence Digest. For a free e-mail subscription to the Intelligence Digest, please click here ----

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