Kyiv, Ukraine – Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it sound as though Western nations were to thank for making his decades-old dream to merge Russia with neighbouring Belarus come true.
“Unprecedented political and sanctions pressure from the so-called collective West pushes us to speed up the merging processes,” Vladimir Putin said on July 1 at a forum in the western Belarusian city of Grodno, a stone’s throw away from the European Union’s border.
