Russian media report that a campaign for collecting signatures for holding a geopolitical referendum "together with Belarus" was launched in Stavropol Krai.
The initiators of the plebiscite propose to vote for... joining this federal subject of Russia to Belarus. As the Stavropol protest committee reports, pickets in five public sites of the city are planned on January 15–26. As Radio Svaboda reports, a car equipped with sound amplifiers will be driving in the city on January 12–14. Organizers will use the car to inform citizens about the course of the campaign.
"We do not believe our authorities. We do not want them to rule us any more. We trust the man who demonstrated in practice wisdom, real concern for people, showed himself as an honest and incorruptible person. This man is president of Belarus Alyaksandr Lukashenka," the statement of the protest committee says.
According to Stavropol activists, Lukashenka, in particular, didn’t pocket profits from selling oil and gas to the US and didn’t destroy Mir space station. The Russian authorities have damages relations with a range of neighbouring countries over the last year, as a result, the Kazakh gas now flows through the "enemy’s pipeline". However, the Belarusian-Russian oil and gas problems are not mentioned.
Taking into account unwillingness of the Russian authorities to carry out "full and quick integration of the brother nations", the organizers of the campaign propose to hold a referendum on integration of Belarus and Stavropol Krai, and temporary, until full integration of Belarus and Russia, delegation of power over Stavropol Krai to Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
