Photo by rambler.ru

Belarus has had a busy year. A stolen presidential election in August 2020, sustained nationwide protests met with mass arrests and illegal in-detention abuse and torture, Western sanctions, and joint military exercises with Russia. And now Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gave the green light for state piracy against a Ryanair flight to kidnap the dissident Roman Protasevich. In an unusual display of ire and alacrity, the European Union (EU) took swift action, imposing further sanctions against Belarus, advising against EU flights utilizing Belarusian airspace and banning the Belarusian national airline Belavia from either using EU airports or airspace. Ukraine and the United Kingdom have also denied Belarus access to their airspace.

For most of his 26-year tenure as president, Mr. Lukashenko maintained his rule through an autocratic grip on Belarussian society and by balancing Belarus’ relationship with Moscow and Brussels. Minsk joined Moscow in creating the Union State of Russia and Belarus but has resisted total integration of key sectors of Belarus’ military, security, military, and economy with Russia. Belarus had also maintained a neutral position in the Ukrainian conflict so that the Belarusian capital, Minsk, could serve as the host city for talks aimed at resolving the conflict in the Ukrainian Donbas.

But as the Belarusian strongman’s rule faces growing pressure, his resilience against Kremlin pressure has correspondingly cratered. To preserve his regime, Lukashenko has allowed the Russian FSB to widely infiltrate the Belarusian KGB. President Lukashenko also agreed to joint Belarusian-Russian military training centers with one in Belarus’ EU border region of Grodno, and proceeded to integrate the Russian and Belarusian air defense systems. Meanwhile, Russian oligarchs are pushing ahead to buy Belarusian potash company Belaruskali and fertilizer company Hrodno Azot.

Meanwhile, President Lukashenko also invited ‘Donbas’ investigators to interrogate Roman Protasevich. This followed a two-day summit in Sochi swimming with Russian President Putin where he left with a $500 million loan Ukraine has already lobbied to have the negotiation process moved from Minsk, since such de facto recognition of the rebel territories as independent states negates supposed Belarusian neutrality in the matter.

What we are seeing is the transformation of Belarus from a sovereign state into a Russian protectorate. Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation, noted that Russia has increased its joint exercises with Belarus to essentially keep Russian troops stationed in Belarus at all times, in a parallel to NATO’s rotation of forces in Poland and the Baltic States through its Enhanced Forward Presence. Such deployments allow Russia to threaten the security of Ukraine and Europe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the Union State a threat Ukraine, allowing Russia to directly threaten Ukraine’s northern border. This comes two months following the border crisis where Russia massed 110,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern border and in the occupied Crimean Peninsula. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that most of the troops would be withdrawn from the border by May 1. However, Ukrainian sources have revealed that Russia has maintained a force of 100,000 servicemen with 1,300 tanks, 37,00 armored vehicles, and over 1,600 artillery and rocket systems on the Ukrainian border.

At this point, it is unclear whether Belarus can be extracted from the Kremlin’s embrace. In the West, Lukashenko may be the most hated man after Syrian President Bashar al-Asaad. Should he remain in power, then Belarus will be entangled in Moscow’s web. But challenges will remain even should the exiled Belarusian opposition manage to oust Lukashenko so that Belarussian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya can become Belarusian president. Under Russian pressure, Lukashenko has been strengthening the Belarusian parliament so that pro-Kremlin Belarusian parties can maintain Belarus’ eastward orientation regardless of who sits in the presidential palace.

Whether or not Lukashenko remains in power, the West faces no good options. For now, U.S. President Joseph Biden should make clear that the United States and its allies will not passively allow Russia to threaten states important to Western security. The United States and its European and NATO allies should take meaningful and visible steps to fortify NATO’s eastern flank in the Baltic states and Black Sea region, with particular emphasis on the defense of Ukraine and Georgia.

The European Union already has a large, if controversial, arms industry whose clients are mostly authoritarians in the Sahel. The EU should expand the regional scope of its European Peace Facility, the $6 billion fund dedicated to arming those governments, and arm democratizing states important to European security such as Ukraine and Georgia. Similarly, the United States needs to continue arming Ukraine and Georgia and foster connections between Ukraine’s established and Turkey’s burgeoning defense industries. NATO should also rotate its forces not just in the Baltics, but in Ukraine and Georgia on a regular basis so there is a constant NATO presence in these countries. As Putin threatens “uncomfortable signals” ahead of his summit with President Biden in Geneva this June, he must learn that his policy of developing and sustaining protracted conflicts will not deter his adversaries.

In August of 2020, Belarus’ President, Aleksandr Lukashenko, ran for presidency for the fifth straight time. Twenty-six years ago, Lukashenko was elected as the first President of Belarus and has continued throughout his rule to stand in the way of democracy, human rights, and economic freedom. He has changed the Constitution numerous times, jailed political opponents, and tried to the remnants Soviet Union under his rule. Lukashenko has often been referred to as “the last dictator of Europe” by the West. The Belarusian people stood by and watched this take place and did not have much say in what they see as the future of Belarus. COVID-19 was the last straw for the people of Belarus. Since Lukashenko decided that the virus was not real and that if people continue to drink vodka and go to saunas, they will be okay, people were reminded that they were not protected by their government and were not safe. With no quarantine in place, the Belarusian people are now at their boiling point.

Opposition to Lukashenko was always present, but it was not always vocal, as people usually feared for their lives. As the elections were approaching, the two candidates that were running against Lukashenko, Viktor Babariko and Valery Tsepkalo were both unfoundedly jailed. Sergei Tikhanovsky, an anti-government video blogger, wanted to put forth his candidacy after these incidents but was not allowed by the election committee and was also jailed for his outspoken criticism of the regime in Belarus. His wife, Svetlana decided to assume his role and signed up to run for the president of Belarus working with Babariko’s and Tsepkalo’s campaign managers to create a united opposition majority in the country. The unity party included leadership from Tsepkalo’s wife, Veronika, and Babariko’s campaign manager, Maria Kolesnikova. It is noteworthy that the reason why the Belarusian election committee let Svetlana register was because she was a proclaimed housewife and nobody in the regime thought she would be a threat. As the elections were approaching, the opposition put a self-counting system in place to make sure

that there was an election monitor called Golos that tracked the number of votes for each candidate and how many people voted to have proof if the elections were falsified.

On August 9th, 2020, Aleksandr Lukashenko was declared as the President of Belarus, once again for his sixth term. Anticipating what was to come, the police placed a blockade around the city of Minsk to keep people from protesting in the capital. The internet access was shut down on mobile and home devices to prevent people from using the Golos app and coordinating protests in the city’s center. The government clarified that there was a denial-of-service attack that originated outside of Belarus, but IT specialists claimed that it was regime-based, and Lukashenko had cost the economy $170 million for the three days that the internet was shut down.

In the aftermath, Belarus has been in chaos for the last two months. Protests and marches are occur every day on the streets of major cities, with the biggest in Minsk. The protests have gained international recognition due to OMON, Belarus’ riot police, ill-treating protestors by beating and torturing them and taking them to the detention center, Okrestina, which is known for the brutal torturing of the people who have been jailed for mostly peaceful protests. Women have been raped and beaten. Tikhanovskaya was ordered to give a message after the elections, that people could tell that it was scripted.

The international community of the West, including the European Union and the United States, has stopped recognizing Aleksandr Lukashneko as the legitimate president of Belarus and has placed much of his government under sanctions. Poland and the Baltic States have also started to accept political refugees from Belarus. Russia, on the other hand has congratulated Lukashenko on his win in the elections and Vladimir Putin has continued to meet with Lukashenko throughout the last three months of protests. In these meetings, the situation in Minsk has not been discussed. Putin did approve of the changes in the constitution that Lukashenko once again touched in September. Lukashenko keeps claiming that the protests are orchestrated by the West, which include the U.S. and EU. He has also told Mike Pompeo that Russia is, and will continue to be, his closest ally.