It’s very likely that from now on the movement of Belarusian authorities towards Brussels’ requirements will be even more visible. The Belarusian president was furious about yesterdays’ remarks of the Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin who publicly cast doubt on the Belarus’ ability to default on its debt by the end of the year due to the dire state of economy. He warned it was too early to say whether Belarus would receive any further loans from Moscow.

“The future of Belarus can no longer depend on Russia… The days of Minsk bowing down to Moscow are over… Belarus needs to look for its happiness on a different part of the planet.”– announced Lukashenka. And underlined that he was saying this in public consciously.

The escapade came a day after his talks with the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Minsk. Putin who travelled together with Kudrin played a “good cop” and expressed hope that Belarusian-Russian trade kept increasing in the period of the global crisis.

Lukashenka in contrast expressed outrage that Kudrin’s comments had been agreed with Putin and commented that the Russian minister had also fully consolidated with the Belarusian opposition which lived on Western grants and tried to teach the authorities to work. (That’s probably the worst you can say about someone: he is with the opposition!)

The stakes according to Lukashenka are high: “If we don’t stand tall… we are going to be running in a sweat to the right and the left in the hope that someone is going to throw us a piece of bread from the table.”

He mentioned no alternative to Russia. But we have two strong neighbours. And if we don’t bow down to Russia, the movement towards EU could become more visible. The problem is that this visibility is nothing new. So there’s little hope this movement is going to be more effective this time.