As brutal crackdowns have failed to put an end to popular unrest in Belarus and mass protests have broken out in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, dissatisfaction with the status quo in Lebanon is at its height. Anna Borshchevskaya argues that all three pose problems for Vladimir Putin, who is invested not only in maintaining his rule over Russia, but also in propping up the current regimes in Minsk and Beirut. To Putin, the present situation in Belarus is an ucomfortable reminder of the “color revolutions” that swept through former Soviet republics in the 2000s, and removed pro-Kremlin dictators:
Putin’s fear of [democratic] revolutions always encompassed the Middle East, even though it has received less attention. Indeed, the color revolutions swept the post-Soviet space in early-to-mid 2000s also touched the Middle East, with Lebanon’s Cedar revolution.
Current events in Lebanon may seem remote compared to protests closer to Russia. But Lebanon also matters directly to Russia’s policy in Syria, where Putin’s intervention in 2015 both saved the dictator Bashar al-Assad from losing power and elevated Russia’s status—in the eyes of many Western and regional officials—of an indispensable player.
It is not just that that Moscow never labelled Hizballah as a terrorist organization (unlike Western countries), and that overall Moscow leans closer to the Iran-Hizballah-Syria axis in the Middle East. That in and of itself is enough for Moscow to support [the current] Hizballah-backed government in Beirut. But some Russian experts [have also] observed that Lebanese banks could serve as Syria’s connection to the outside world, facilitating reconstruction in a manner that keeps Assad in power.
Read more on The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/513911-why-instability-in-belarus-khabarovsk-and-lebanon-are-problems-putin