MECACS member Professor Rick Fawn publishes article with the Sunday Post – ‘Analysis: As we all look to Ukraine, we must not forget Belarus. Russia won’t’

MECACS member Professor Rick Fawn has published a piece entitled ‘Analysis: As we all look to Ukraine, we must not forget Belarus. Russia won’t’ in the Sunday Post. Professor Fawn is a specialist on international security, with a geographic concentration on the former communist space. He has conducted research in and published on Central Europe, the Balkans, Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia.  He has also made numerous invited contributions to governments and media, and given many papers and invited lectures and keynote addresses in the UK and overseas. He has previously been Director of the MECACS Institute and Director of the University of St Andrew’s Centre for Russia and East European Studies.

“We are rightly focused on the massive Russian military build-up around Ukraine and the most recent, and potentially most troubling, is in Belarus.

The concern is that Vladimir Putin could, in the process of mobilisation, seize control there as our gaze is locked on events south of this post-Soviet dictatorship.

A number of reasons suggests the move would appeal to the Kremlin. Firstly, Putin craves regional order and stability. That means having leaders who reliably maintain domestic autocratic order, and comply with building ever-closer working relations with Russia, including Putin’s pet regional project of the Eurasian Economic Union. We know Putin’s fear and revulsion at the (peaceful) removal of previous friendly regimes in other post-Soviet nations…”

Read the full article on the Sunday Post website.