This has now escalated into something much larger than a price dispute. Vladimir Putin has played games with oil prices in the past, especially last year when he attempted to quadruple the price to Ukraine, which had left the Russian political orbit after the Orange Revolution. The surprise here has been that Putin has launched an economic attack on the one European former republic that still remained close to the Kremlin.
However, Alexander Lukashenko has started talking about national sovereignty, which points towards what might be the heart of the dispute. It has been rumored that Putin wants Belarus to commit to an anschluss of sorts, annexing itself to Russia proper and accepting provincial status. Lukashenko has balked at this suggestion despite his former closeness to Putin, and this price war appears to be Putin's punishment for Lukashenko's nationalism.
This could just be an attempt by Lukashenko to rally his people around his rather unpopular government in a crisis. However, it fits with Putin's plan to expand Russian influence in the region, and the two men signed an agreement years ago to have Belarus give the pipeline to Putin and accept provincial status in exchange for assistance from Russia. Now that the bill has come due, Lukashenko has suddenly discovered his nationalism, and he wants to inspire a groundswell of support for his sudden Russophobia.
It might even work. Lukashenko has little popularity among the Belarussians, but defending the homeland will certainly help improve his standing, even among those who want close ties to Moscow. Putin may find that his plans to recreate the Greater Russia of the Soviet Union will be dashed -- again -- on the nationalism of it former component parts. And in this case, Putin may have created a nationalist nemesis out of what he had considered a lackey.
I think this is dead on. I noted Putin's drive to empire quite some time ago. The scary part is that I think only some of the comments I received in complaint were from actual Russians. Of course there were always that small percentage of Westerners who deluded themselves to the true nature of the Soviet empire. The slogans may had changed, but it was, in spirit identical, to the Tsarist empire.
That being said I would be surprised if Lukashenko's defiance to Moscow will amount to too much. If Putin is a thug (and he most assuredly is) than Lukashenko is a two-bit thug. I don't see Lukashenko really going down an independent path, ala Ukraine. The European contacts and investments will never come as easily to a Belarus under Lukashenko as they do to Ukraine.
Now a Belarus without Lukashenko?? That may be another story.
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