Alexander Lukashenko, Putin's dictator vassal

No other State in the world has supported Russia more vigorously in its “special military operation” than Alexander Lukashenko's Belarus. Since the invasion began on February 24, the pariah State, bordering Russia and Ukraine, has allowed the Kremlin to deploy its troops on its soil and even use it as a platform for launching military attacks on Ukrainian territory.

So far no Belarusian troops have been sent to Ukraine, but this does not exempt the Minsk authorities from their responsibility in this war.

In the past, despite Belarus's heavy economic dependence on Moscow, Lukashenko has often navigated skillfully between Russia and its geopolitical competitors. From 2015 to 2020, there was even a certain approach to the EU, thanks in part to Minsk's refusal to recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The dictator, who has ruled his country with an iron fist since 1994, has also confronted Putin on issues of strategic importance to the independence of Belarus: in the mid-2000s he opposed the introduction of a common currency into the State of the Union (a supranational organization that unites the two countries) and, in 2015, the establishment of a Russian air base desired by the Kremlin since the May 2013-2014 revolution in Ukraine.

In the context of the Donbass war, Lukashenko, thanks to his ability to maneuver, managed to briefly change his international image. He temporarily transformed himself from “Europe's last dictator” to “mediator in the Ukrainian crisis” by hosting talks in his capital in 2014-2015, where the famous Minsk Agreements were signed.

At that time, he took an ambiguous position, not recognizing the annexation of Crimea by Russia, but approving the actions of Vladimir Putin in that region and in the Donbass. Despite growing pressures from the Kremlin, in 2022 Lukashenko remained silent on the issue of Crimea, as well as on the status of the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russia recognized as independent on the eve of its invasion of Ukraine.

In 2020, a definite turn to Moscow

But overall, Lukashenko's balancing act came to an end after he refused to give in to his country's pro-democratic forces in August 2020. It should be recalled that, following the announcement of its new victory in a presidential election, marred by flagrant fraud, a protest movement of unprecedented proportions broke out in Belarus, which almost brought down its regime.

To ensure its survival, it had no choice but to place itself firmly under the protection, and therefore the influence, of Russia. If he has remained in power, it is largely thanks to Putin, who has allowed him to secure the support of the remaining three pillars of the Belarusian regime: the siloviki (the country's security or military services, which have applied a fierce repression of protesters), the vertical of the executive and about 20-30% of the electorate.

Lukashenko further distanced himself from the West by ordering the hijacking of a plane between two European capitals, Athens and Vilnius, in May 2021 to stop a Belarusian opponent on board, and then by provoking a migration crisis in Poland and Lithuania. Its growing dependence on Russia has also led to the creation of joint military training centers, which have served as a pretext for Russia to establish and maintain a permanent military presence in Belarus.

In recent years, Lukashenko has systematically presented NATO and the West in general as a threat to Russia and Belarus. When protests broke out in Kazakhstan in January 2022, it prompted the dispatch of troops to that country under the flag of the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and blamed the West, especially Poland, for the unrest.

It was not the first time he had turned to the CSTO military alliance to help other autocrats stay in power. In 2010, he asked the same organization to send troops to support Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Kyrgyzstan, without success. This time, he managed to convince Putin to come to the aid of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Kazakhstan to overcome the various political groups that were competing with each other and trying to take advantage of protests initially motivated by economic reasons.

On February 27, Belarus adopted a new constitution under pressure from the Kremlin, although Lukashenko had told the media three days earlier that he was satisfied with the previous version. The new text, approved by referendum in clear violation of democratic procedures, was stripped of an article stating that the country was neutral and did not harbor nuclear weapons on its soil. Members of the Belarusian opposition, such as Anatoli Liabedzka, said this change provided a “legal basis for the establishment of a Russian military base and the deployment of nuclear weapons” on Belarusian territory.

On the day of the vote, the Belarusian opposition decided to mobilize the electorate around the idea of opposition to war. For the first time since December 2020, Belarusians took to the streets, picketing and chanting anti-war slogans in front of polling stations. Some 800 people were arrested, according to the Viasna human rights center. The opposition in exile encouraged its supporters to invalidate the ballots by voting both for and against the new constitution, and some not only responded to this call, but also added anti-war messages, as shown in photos posted on the Internet.

Lukashenko's ambiguous stance on the war in Ukraine

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the Belarusian president initially criticized the Ukrainian administration for not capitulating to a powerful nuclear state. He warned of the possible bloodshed and denied that his country was a party to the conflict, noting the non-participation of Belarusian troops in the invasion. However, he quickly contradicted himself by stating at the same meeting that his military forces “will be there if necessary”.

A few days later, on March 4, at an event celebrating the adoption of the new Constitution, he tried to reassure his closest circle by ensuring that he would not send Belarusian troops to fight in Ukraine. It is true that the perception of the war in Belarus, a country in which one in four people lost their lives between 1941 and 1944, is very different from that in Russia.

A Chatham House poll conducted between 20 January and 9 February shows that most Belarusians in cities are opposed to sending soldiers to Ukraine and prefer Minsk to take a neutral stance. According to the Belarusian sociologist Hienadz Korshunau, this is not surprising in a country where many have been traumatized by the proximity of the battlefields of World War II. Although Ukraine has been regularly discredited on Belarusian public television since 2014, attacks against it are much less serious in Belarus than in Russia.

In recent weeks, Lukashenko has tried to distract the Belarusian population from the war being waged in neighbouring Ukraine by broadcasting countless celebrations on prime time television. For example, on 5 March, she participated in a ski race and the following day the media gave extensive coverage to an athletics race in Minsk in which 300 women participated. The Ministry of Defense published a sarcastic video of Belarusian soldiers in which they smilingly said that they were indeed on national territory and that they did not believe the rumors that they had been deployed elsewhere. However, these attempts to reassure Belarusians were probably unsuccessful, as people follow the state media less and less.

An even less impartial mediator than before

Given the low enthusiasm of Belarusians for the war, even among the president's own supporters, Lukashenko's organization of mediation talks on 28 February and 3 March seems rational. It also gives him room for maneuver in the face of Putin: as the strong man from Minsk poses as the guarantor of the negotiations, it is justified that he does not send troops to Ukraine.

The fact is that, even if Lukashenko tries as much as possible to preserve some residual independence from the Kremlin, it seems highly unlikely that he will be able to free himself from his ever closer alliance with Russia in the short or medium term.

Ekaterina Pierson-Lyzhina is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Political Life (Cevipol), Free University of Brussels (ULB).

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