Merkel: "Belarus Gov't Must Not Use Violence Against Protesters"

Tom Nuttall at The Economist tweets: "Chancellery readout of Merkel-Putin call: Merkel emphasized that the Belarusian government must refrain from using violence against peaceful demonstrators, release political prisoners immediately and enter into dialogue with the opposition & society."

• European Council to hold meeting of member state leaders tomorrow via videoconference to discuss the situation in Belarus, which is moving faster than many EU gov'ts had anticipated.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin seen as a crucial actor in the ongoing protests against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Putin and Lukashenko's relationship is poor, and the protests do not seem to be EU-focused, unlike the Maidan protests in Ukraine that sparked the ongoing struggle in the east of the country for a separate ethnically Russian state. They are more similar to those in Armenia in 2018, where pro-Moscow President Serzh Sargsyan was ousted by protesters angry at what they saw as widespread corruption and heavy-handed state control.
• As such, the Kremlin may not be as inclined to step in to prop up Lukashenko should he lose support of the country's security services.