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Fewer than 20 percent of Belarusians support Russia’s airbase plans, poll suggests

 

Fewer than 20 percent of those interviewed in June’s poll by the Vilnius-based Independent Institute of Social, Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS) welcomed a statement by Russian Defense Sergei Shoigu that Russia was planning to establish an airbase in Belarus.

As many as 35.6 percent said that they were indifferent to the statement and 36 percent said that they did not like it, the IISEPS press office told BelaPAN.

The government’s attempts to “play the anti-Western card” also appear to be largely inefficient, the press office said.

Only 27 percent of the respondents said that they agreed with Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s assessment of the situation of Belarus in the international arena summarized in his recent remark, “We are strangled through sanctions, smeared with the dirt of slander. NATO warplanes fly, new military bases are created, provocations are committed along our borders.” As many as 35.7 percent said that they were indifferent to the remark and 28.2 percent said that they disagreed with it. //BelaPAN