I won't happen because we already know that Trump cannot support any independence without first getting approval from the Kremlin.
Just ask 90% of the anti Trump folks on here.
I doubt that it will be much fun in Kiev.
The Trump Administration’s duplicity will be the principal subject (or the elephant in the room).
Trump, Pompeo and Trump’s collection of grifters and bag men have given the Ukraine little reason to have confidence in American backing and none in American leadership.
very interesting article
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To Keep Putin Out, Belarus Invites the U.S. and China In
With Pompeo planning to visit, authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is looking to play an old game with new players.
MINSK, Belarus—Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s 65-year-old authoritarian president, is ratcheting up the geopolitical high-wire act he’s been conducting with Russian President Vladimir Putin by inviting China and the United States to exercise influence in his country as a way of forestalling political union with the Kremlin.
Lukashenko’s outreach is expected to deepen following a planned visit to Minsk by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, which was recently delayed due to escalating tensions in Iraq.
“We’re not going to cut off our ties with Russia, they are our neighbor and largest economic partner, but surrendering our sovereignty and independence is out of the discussion,” Vladimir Makei, Belarus’s foreign minister, told Foreign Policy in an interview. “There are already three or four generations of people born in the new, independent state of Belarus, and they will never agree with giving up any independence.”
Lukashenko’s new tactic is a response both to ramped-up pressure from Moscow and rising public sentiment in Belarus. Late this past year, the capital, Minsk, saw rare protests against integration with Russia, with demonstrators holding signs and banners that read “First Crimea, then Belarus” and “Stop Annexation!” The protests coincided with talks held in St. Petersburg between Lukashenko and Putin, which, like other sessions that took place in December 2019, resulted in a stalemate.
But growing frustration between both sides is evident. Putin recently tied further energy discounts for Belarus to the condition that integration talks progress, while Lukashenko warned during an interview last month that any attempt to force Belarus to become part of Russia could trigger a war with the West.
In the face of this growing challenge, the Belarusian leader has inserted new variables into his tried formula of strategic hedging and in the process turned Belarus into an important front amid deepening rivalries and growing competition among Russia, the United States, and China.
“Belarus is looking for an exit from its current geopolitical deadlock,” said Arsen Sivitski, the director of the Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies, a Minsk-based think tank. “In a way, this is the same game that Lukashenko has been playing and manipulating since the beginning, but it’s also quickly changing.”
Beijing has emerged as a growing political and economic force, with Belarus positioning itself as an important launching pad on the European Union’s doorstep for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. China has become a growing patron for Belarus, opening up a $15 billion line of credit to Belarus’s Development Bank and providing a $500 million loan last month after a similar one from Moscow was held up amid integration talks. Relations with the United States have also begun to thaw. In August, then-National Security Advisor John Bolton visited Belarus, and in September, Washington and Minsk announced they would exchange ambassadors after a decadelong break in diplomatic relations.
Pompeo’s visit to Minsk is part of a wider tour that will take him to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus. While Washington’s interest in Belarus is in many ways cursory and focused on rebuilding ties—and U.S. President Donald Trump has often avoided offending Putin—the country’s strategic location has seen it become more prominent among U.S. policymakers. Like many of the other former Soviet countries that will be visited, the United States is focused on Moscow’s intentions toward Minsk, but also on curbing China’s growing influence in the country—and elsewhere across the former Soviet Union—since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Belarus Tries to Hold Off Putin by Inviting U.S. and China In
