...why wouldn’t Belarus already be a part of Russia? I doubt that Putin would say no.
EDIT:
Conditional on “Lukashenka wants Belarus to merge with Russia”, my best guess is that his army opposes it (for selfish reasons) and Lukashenka cannot ignore the wishes of his own army.
I heard that Lukashenka lobbied for a merger of Russia and Belarus because he liked his chances of eventually becoming leader of the combined entity.
Yes, but that was decades ago, when Yeltsin was president! The ‘union state’ has been moribund since the early aughts.
😲
But then...
...why wouldn’t Belarus already be a part of Russia? I doubt that Putin would say no.
EDIT:
Conditional on “Lukashenka wants Belarus to merge with Russia”, my best guess is that his army opposes it (for selfish reasons) and Lukashenka cannot ignore the wishes of his own army.
OK, well, here is where I got the information in my previous comment—somewhere in the first 47 minutes of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFmugMGl4Uo