The large-scale pan-European blockade of Belarus in connection with the forcible landing of the Ryanair aircraft in Minsk and the subsequent arrest of political activist and journalist Roman Protasevich is of interest for its consequences in the first place.
Following Greater Europe (Finland, Sweden, Germany, Great Britain, France and, of course, almost all of Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries have closed their skies for Belarus), Ukraine has lowered its shabby curtain for air travel to Belarus too.
Ukraine's National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC) immediately banned the supplies of electricity from Belarus and Russia until October 1, Valeriy Tarasyuk, the chairman of the commission said.
Not too long ago, Ukraine's Minister of Energy, Herman Galushchenko, made such a suggestion as well. Now it just so happens that this decision "has just happened to coincide." In general, Ukraine has its own understanding of the term "energy blockade", taking into account Ukraine's experience in cutting electric power supplies to the Crimea.
Putin and Lukashenko will gather for a summit on May 28. Analysts ironically say that it would be great if the meeting of the two presidents would end with a welcoming ceremony of one President of the new Russian Federation.
Russia's strategic goal in relation to Belarus, as political scientist Maksim Zharov believes, is to ensure that Belarus gets something like the Minsk Accords during the transit of power from Lukashenko. It is also vitally important to ensure that those agreements put up a barrier for the West in its endeavour to take over Belarus.
If Putin obtains such an agreement from Lukashenko (we are no longer talking about any integration), this would be a great victory for Russia in Russian-Belarusian relations.
In the meantime, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko plans to discuss the sanctioned companies and the sale of oil to Belarus.
It is worthy of note that Alexander Lukashenko stated in an impudent fashion that "if Biden wants to discuss Belarus with Putin at the summit, let him come to Minsk." It apparently means that Belarusian special services will work well again to ensure the forcible landing of Air Force One.