[m0zg]

Russia will do whatever it needs to do to prevent Belarus from affiliating itself militarily or economically with the West. Whether it's being BFFs with Lukashenko, or "supporting opposition", or partitioning Belarus, or taking it whole - all of those options are on the table. Which one will be chosen will depend on the situation. Fundamentally Russia would like to have Belarus as a part of some union (cultural affinity is very strong between the two countries, and Belarussian and Russian people consider themselves to be ethnically very close; to a Russian eye Belarussian language looks like Russian with deliberate and funny grammatical mistakes), but if it can't, it's quite happy to have it as a buffer state. What it can't have are NATO bases in Belarus. Same as it can't have NATO bases in Ukraine or NATO bases in Crimea. If you'd like to understand why, just take a look at the map with population density overlaid.