The ambassador Babich and his demise

Lukashenko has got one year to think about the integration process in return for Babich’s removal and Putin gave him a promise not interfering with Belarussian domestic affairs. Babichs actions were unheard as his visited regions, meeting with locals has felt like being a governor that has exercised a parallel power in Belarus as his tone was mentoring and Moscow gave a sign of its claims on Belarus. Actually, his actions were misinterpreted and exaggerated too, as he was given special authority in a time of his appointment by Putin, formally put in charge of economic relations as a special envoy of the Russian president. He remained in member at the Security Council of Russia His tenure was accompanied by activation of social networks on topics of union treaty and being a scarecrow of Russian increasing pressure on Belarus, as well as lead to the spread of rumors over social networks. He was tasked to surface and catalyze the problematic issues between countries. He was put in comparison with the former long term served (12 years) ambassador Surikov, who was extremely mild known by his smoothing things over and with long tenure of ambassador work-oriented more toward Minsk rather to Moscow. At that time, Russia was interested in freezing out the union state integration process. Lukashenko did not like that Babich was highlighting problems instead of slurring over. Lukashenko has already, before his resign ordered to stop the communication with Babich on the all country level and his stay in the office of ambassador had not a meaning anymore. At the meeting with Putin in Peking, Lukashenko is said almost to be breaking chairs out of anger.

Prior to his office taking in Belarus, he has been discussed as a candidate to the embassy in Ukraine, for which the Russians could not attain the consent by Ukraine. He combined features of being hard-edged, rigid military man. Previously, serving in KGB, as prime minister in Chechnya, while also participating at the first Chechen War campaign in 1994 who quarreled with Akhmed Kadyrov, he was known for his uncompromised style, as he ravaged the national elite in the Volga region and enforced the anti-language law in Tatarstan. He applied the same methods of management what he learned from his previous services. And even after dismissal, he will be in charge of Belarus further on and in Moscow, he was praised for the expediency of his action. He was one of the most trusted man of Putin, Putin shows great respect to former KGB men and their sons, while his father Victor Babich was captain Putin’s boss in 80s in Dresden.

Babich reincarnated the union treaty and re-actualized the interest toward the union treaty. He has established the economic council, which consisted of the representatives of several business spheres, fuel- energy sector, machinery, light industry, bank and insurance and trade sectors. It was achieved that Rosselkhoznadsor (controlling organ by Russian Agrar) knew ahead which product (milk) will come, in which amount and from where and the Belarussian suppliers got the warranty of marketizing their products. This was an operative system and he inserted the system of electronic certification of products and to track and follow the chain of products origin by the system called “Merkuriy”. His visits to regions had the character of acquaintance with Belarussian business sector, as to reach the level of 50-billion-dollar trade, but of course to capitalize later on these economic contacts by himself.

His mission consisted of reporting correct numbers to the center about economic situation of Belarus, as he collected information from the first hand by himself. He was kind of having a mission to take an inventory of union state agreement.  Belarus is viewed in the Russian establishment as offshore, where it uses the advantages created by Belarus-Russian special relations and reaps more benefit than Russia. His mission was to de-offshorize the business with Belarus.  At the level of Russian rulership, Belarus is estimated as highly costly, even more troubling than the costs for annexed Crimea.  

He bypassed the Russian Foreign Office and did not adjusted his plans with it, causing irritation at the MIA. Belarussian Foreign Ministry didn’t like him as well, because immediately with his arrival in Minsk all previous regular staff members of the embassy were dispatched back home and were replaced with own men subordinated directly to Kremlin. Makei is the most pro-European member of the Belarussian leadership, but he is the most trusted one and loyal to Lukashenko too. Actually, even though Babich was directly put under the authority of the president Putin, but the Belarus as a case is assigned to the apparatus of the Russian government in charge, and it’s no secret that Medvedev repels Lukashenko since many years.  

During 7 months of his office-holding, he visited 14 towns, regions and met not only the ministers, but also IWF in Belarus, the representatives of World Bank and UN. All two times in a month he departed from Minsk and was in all the places, Mogilev, Baranovich, Gomel, Brest, Vitebsk, Polosk, Dzershinsk, Kobrin and Ostrovsts more than Lukashenko for this period of time. He visited in the region mainly companies with participating Russian capital or cooperation with Russia.

Also, all his visits were accomplished with a visit to a monastery or church. Here, we can say that he is a proponent of “Russian world”. Doing some kind of google mapping and conducting the photo- monitoring on Belarussian streets and capturing how the Russian language become ablated from the street names, of stores and putting it out as Belarussization. His excursion to Brest was planned to praise and make it more visible the Russian role in support of Belarus even at its most distant region at the border with the West, to popularize the pro-Russian youth activities, such as “Youth Patriotic Centre in Brest or Military-Historian Club “Rubezh” (frontier), while also because Brest was declared as the cultural capital of CIS in 2019.

Giving big conferences, being visible on the Belarussian media, becoming a public figure, meeting even Belarussian oppositionists, such as from the “Say The Truth” movement, Dmitriev and Korotkevic, economist Romanchuk and the oppositional PM Anna Kanopackaya, make his intention plain to learn and explain and convince them of what Russian arguments and actual support to Belarus are in opposition to the arguments by Lukashenkos speeches, but also to enhance numbers of those who are involved in bilateral discussions. His successor Mezenstev is reputed of lobbying the Belarus observer status at the SCO while he served as the general secretary there. A next appointment for Babich could be the works on Donetsk and Luhansk, while he replaces Surkov and with integration process to be facilitated, the region with Belarus becomes included into the union state formation.