(EDM) The postponed Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan summit took place last Friday (March 20) in Astana, but the program was cut so short that the only point for staging the event appeared to be to confirm President Vladimir Putin’s return to business as usual (Kommersant, March 21). Presidents Nursultan Nazarbaev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka spent more time together discussing their mutual problems in relations with Russia; and they had good reason to assume that these problems would grow more serious because the European Union, at its recent summit in Brussels, left the sanctions regime against Russia unchanged (RBC, March 20). European leaders expressed differing opinions about the usefulness of sanctions, but nobody was prepared to send Moscow a conciliatory signal amidst the large-scale snap military exercise ordered by Putin last Monday (March 16) and continuing for the whole week (Gazeta.ru, March 17). The need to engage Moscow in constructive dialogue is real and growing ever more pressing, but both Russia’s closest allies and its concerned neighbors find it difficult to accommodate the country’s maverick behavior and erratic leadership. […]
Read More © Eurasia Daily Monitor
