(CN) — The harsh view that the European Union is a weakling when it comes to foreign affairs and standing up against the military powers of the world is being seriously tested as Russia exerts control over Belarus and dismisses claims that a prominent Russian opposition leader was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.
On Thursday, Russia was seen flexing its muscles on both fronts. It sent Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and a cadre of other government ministers to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, in a show of support for the teetering regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The Kremlin also dismissed Germany's findings that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent first concocted by Soviet scientists in the 1970s and believed to be in the possession of the Russian military in violation of chemical weapons treaties.
The EU now risks seeing Russia get its way despite the chorus of protests coming from European capitals against the authoritarian tactics deployed by Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“In foreign policy, the European Union is frankly hopelessly weak, slow and divided,” Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert who writes about Russian criminals and spies, said on his podcast.
Galeotti said the EU likes to see itself as a hub of economic power and a model of supranational liberal-democratic governance transcending the old order of zero-sum politics and a leader in establishing international laws, rules and standards.
But he said Russia discounts the EU “as a scam” built around unnatural supranational institutions without real power and sees the bloc as being on the brink of collapse due to internal differences and rivalries, the rise of nationalist movements along with anti-EU sentiment and the departure of Great Britain after the Brexit referendum.
“This is not power as they see it,” Galeotti said. “They feel pretty good about their million-man army compared to the EU” and its insistence on rules and laws.
“It sees none of the genuine signs of power in the EU,” he added. “The Kremlin sees power as based around will, discipline, economic and military and political strength that can be applied; speed and action. In those terms, the EU is nowhere, punching so far below its weight.”
Although Russia views the EU as a geopolitical weakling, it still poses a risk for Putin because the European model is alluring to so many people in Russia and neighboring Belarus, he said.
“There is a certain genteel, magnetic ... force to the European Union that at some level the Kremlin understands and fears,” Galeotti said.
It's in this context, then, that the uprising in Belarus and the alleged poisoning of Navalny can be seen as crucial events in the long-running conflict between the EU and Putin's Russia.
This new chapter in the clash unexpectedly opened on Aug. 9, when mass pro-democracy demonstrations broke out in Belarus following accusations of a rigged presidential election. The protesters are pleading for the EU's help in bringing down the 26-year rule of Lukashenko, a man often described as Europe's last dictator.
The EU has imposed sanctions on Lukashenko and pledged to send $63 million to back pro-democracy efforts and support victims of the regime's brutal crackdown on protests. European leaders also are calling for investigations into allegations of torture against protesters and for a new presidential election.
The crisis on the EU's eastern doorstep deepened and became more multifaceted with the alleged poisoning on Aug. 20 of Navalny, a main opposition figure in Russia who enjoys the backing of the West. He fell ill during a flight to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia; he was flown to Berlin after receiving treatment from Russian doctors who said he hadn't been poisoned.