Belarus, and Western color revolution attempts in Belarus are a mess and one of the few things you can say for certain is that Putin made a big tactical mistake by not shutting down the Belarus plan to weaponize the presence of the Syrians and Iraqis on Poland's border.
All that managed to accomplish was to focus the attention of Poland and the Baltics on Belarus.
As for the rest of it, the Western-backed opposition movement and the sanctions/color revolution/coup attempts/regime change are going to have huge secondary effects throughout Eastern Europe and Russia. And Western grain markets as well.
Since they're going to do it one way or another, just shoot him.
As Hillary Clinton said when the U.S. Predator drone hit Gaddafi's escaping convoy and the French Air Force came screaming in and the British SAS-advised NTC rebels caught Gaddafi and sodomized him with a bayonet and Leading from Behind jokes made the rounds in D.C. and David Cameron joined the Council on Foreign Relations and tried to raise a $1 billion Uk-China fund but proved he's no Tony Blair in the money game....
As Hillary said after all that, "We came, We saw, He died"
From The New York Times via Athens-based partner, eKathimerini, February 1:
Obscure but crucial commodity fuels geopolitical tussle in Eastern Europe
KLAIPEDA, Lithuania – For nearly two decades, long freight trains laden with reddish-brown grit have rumbled into Lithuania’s main port on the Baltic Sea, providing an economic lifeline for Alexander Lukashenko, the autocratic president of neighboring Belarus.
That lifeline is to be cut February 1 after a decision by the Lithuanian government to halt the wagons carrying Lukashenko’s biggest source of cash: potash fertilizer for export to Europe and beyond through the port of Klaipeda.
Lukashenko’s opponents applaud the move, but others worry about an unintended consequence: It benefits Russia, which is expected to take over the transport of Belarusian potash and could gain a stranglehold over a substantial portion of the world’s supply of the obscure but indispensable commodity.
Potash, which Russia also produces, might not look like much, but, prized as a crop nutrient vital for global food security, it has more than doubled in price over the past year, generating billions of dollars in extra income for Lukashenko and other producers. The closing of what had been Belarus’ only export route for the commodity through the Baltics will drive prices even higher.
Lithuania’s state-owned railway and the Klaipeda port earn a large chunk of their revenue from potash. Arguments among Lithuania’s political and economic elite about what to do about the trade restrictions have been so heated that the government in December offered to resign over the issue. The ruckus erupted after the chair of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Zygimantas Pavilionis, accused the government of betraying the United States, a key ally that last year imposed sanctions on Belarus’ state-owned potash producer, and of enabling a dictator.
Pavilionis, a hawkish former Lithuanian ambassador to Washington, said that the issue had become so tense because “it is about very big money.”
In a December letter to Lithuania’s state-owned railway, the US Treasury explained that US sanctions on a big Belarusian potash producer did not apply to foreign entities, but it urged what it called a “risk-based approach” to compliance, suggesting there could be problems in future.
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania and who has long lobbied to stop the potash shipments, said she was delighted to see the end of what she called an “immoral” business whose termination will help empty “the dictator’s deepest pocket.”
That pocket is Belaruskali, a giant state-owned potash producer that serves as a cash cow for Lukashenko’s government. Belarus’ biggest taxpayer and biggest exporter, the company accounts for around 20% of world potash supplies.
But the US-led drive to bankrupt Lukashenko has stirred alarm about the resulting windfall for Russia. Canada, the world’s biggest potash producer, will also gain from an expected surge in prices, but Russian gains go far beyond just price.
“Russia is applauding,” Algis Latakas, director of Klaipeda port, said. Belaruskali, he said, will most likely simply switch to using Russian trains and transport the commodity to Ust-Luga, a Russian port near St Petersburg whose development has long been a pet project of President Vladimir Putin....
....MUCH MORE
It's not that obscure, pretty much nothing grows without it.
See also the post immediately following, "Fertilizer Price Index Jumps Most Since September"
