
Belarus in the context of Kremlin imperialism
Vladimir Sazanov
In an article in the Diplomaatia in March 2019, I wrote that the imperialist Putin regime is doing everything it can to subjugate Belarus and further tie Minsk to Moscow. Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, however, does not accept such developments and, despite Moscow’s increasing political blackmail, economic pressure, information leverage, has shown a certain tenacity to resist Kremlin’s aggressive and intrusive pressure. What has changed since then? Quite a lot has changed. Recently I discussed issues about possible future and scenarios for Belarus in Etonian newspaper “Äripäev” (13 June 2023). Therefore, I will sum up some key ideas and present them here.
Firstly, it should be notedthat the Euro-Atlantic and the whole international security architecture as well has changed lot since Russia launched a large-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022.
Secondly, Belarus and its leader Lukashenko’s own position in the region has changed significantly. Lukashenko’s regime has become more unstable, West does not accept him anymore as legitimate ruler of Belarus.
Thirdly, the Kremlin-Minsk relationship has also changed and changes are visible. The Belarusian leader has become the puppet ruler of the Russia. We can see how Minsk is increasingly dependent on the Kremlin’s support in financial, economic, political, in the energy and security spheres, and so on. One example which illustrates it well tooare event which took place in September 2020, during the post-election protests in Belarus, when Lukashenko and Putin met in Sochi and agreed that Russia would provide Belarus with a 1.25 billion loan. This loan was given, of course, not for free. It has its price. In return, the Belarusian dictator promised to resume military cooperation with Putin’s regime. In January 2022, shortly before Russia launched a full-scale war in Ukraine, Lukashenko start using aggressive rhetoric similar to that of the Kremlin: “If aggression hits our country, there will be hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers here to defend this sacred land, together with hundreds of thousands of Belarusians”.
2020-2022 have been pivotal years for Belarus, as it was precisely at this time that Belarusian state channels began to increasingly repeat Kremlin propaganda messages and narratives, including those against NATO, the EU, Ukraine, the U.S. and the West as a whole. At the same time, in 2021, the border crisis between Belarus and the European Union began, in the context of which the joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise “Zapad-21” took place in the autumn of 2021. This artificially created migration crisis was a hybrid threat created by Minsk, consisting of an influx of tens of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, sent from Belarus. It was very similar to the 2015-2016 Russian dispatch of Syrian refugees to Europe with the aim of destabilizing security architecture of EU. Thus, the Belarusian dictator was apparently acting most probably on the Kremlin’s instructions, which also shows Belarus’ increasing dependence on the Kremlin and the adoption of the same measures and tool of destabilizations.
Lukashenko’s perspectives
Prior to the events of 2020, Lukashenko was often critical towards the Kremlin and Russia, including by publicly showing his opposition to Kremlin blackmail. For example, in 2018, Lukashenko claimed that “blackmailing us, trying to sway us, putting a knee on our chest, will not bring results. We must move towards integration for the sake of the unification of our peoples. I cannot go along with behind-the-scenes grandstanding, everything must be honest and open”. Lukashenko also stressed at the time that Belarus would not join Russia and that deep integration would mean incorporating Belarus into Russia. Lukashenko stressed: “I understand these hints: you can have oil, but destroy your country and join Russia.ˮ Lukashenko further stressed that the idea of deep integration had come from Moscow and would mean the disappearance of Belarus. Now such anti-Kremlin rhetoric has disappeared and been replaced by Kremlin narratives. Moreover, the Lukashenko is no longer manoeuvring between the EU and Russia, he no longer has room for manoeuvre, while he became a ‘political corpse’ for the West after brutal suppression of protests in 2020. After that Moscow has backed him into a corner and is putting more and more pressure on him.
It is worth asking the pertinent question: what lies ahead for Belarus in the near future?
It is, of course, very difficult to predict, but it is possible to make some assumptions on the basis of existing factors and processes. Looking at developments, it cannot be ruled out that the dictatorship of Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 29 years, may soon come to an end (at least this possibility is real). Since the events of 2020, when the next so-called presidential elections took place in Belarus, neither the EU nor the US considers Lukashenko as a legitimate president anymore. For decades, the Lukashenko regime has responded to growing opposition with ever-increasing waves of repression. After Lukashenko again ‘won’ the elections in 2020, large demonstrations took place in Belarus and lasted for months. Minsk retaliated brutally by imprisoning thousands of political opponents and people who were not satisfied with so-called elections.
Many are asking what happens if the former Lukashenko has to resign (e.g. for health reasons)?
Lukashenko’s health is said to be poor, and is believed to have been hospitalised in a serious condition in May 2023. The news that the Belarusian dictator is barely able to stand on his feet spread as early as 9 May 2023, when he was rushed from Minsk to Moscow for a propagandistic so-called 9 May parade.
Russian dictator Putin needed loyal vassals there and Lukashenko is one of them. Some experts, analysing a photo of Lukashenko at the parade, saw bandages on his hands that are usually put on after a drip. It is not clear whether this health problem occurred directly after the Belarus dictator breathed in the Moscow’s dangerous and unhealthy air, or whether it was caused by some natural factor (illness, etc.), as Lukashenko is already 68 years old.
In any case, there are various speculations. In the days that followed, Lukashenko’s press service tried to quell rumours about his health, including by publishing a video showing Lukashenko speaking with his high-ranking military officers. Nonetheless, speculation has continued as to who will take over his mantle, as Lukashenko’s political situation is difficult andhis “death dance” with the Kremlin began much earlier, when he made a deal with Putin. It all started with 1991 and collapse of Soviet system and the long and slow process of “absorption” of Belarus by Russia began after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the creation of the The Commonwealth of Independent States.
In 1994 Lukashenko came to power in Belarus and for some years strengthened its positions in the country. In some ways, it should be noted that the year 1999 was a first turning point, as it was the year of Belarus’s greatest official alignment with Russian Federation. The Agreement on the Creation of the Union State of Russia and Belarus was signed in 1999 in Moscow by the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Alexander Lukashenko. The treaty, which consists of 71 articles, begins as follows:
“The Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, based on the will of the nations of Russia and Belarus to unite and relying on the historical commonality of their fates, having their citizens’ vital interests in mind; convinced that the establishment of a Union State allows efforts to be united in the interests of the socio-economic progress of both countries; based on the effort to continue the integration processes established with the Treaty on the Formation of the Community of Belarus and Russia of 2 April 1996, the Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Belarus and Russia of 2 April 1997 and the Statutes of the Union of Belarus and Russia of 23 May 1997, and by implementing the provisions of the Declaration on the Further Integration of Russia and Belarus of 25 December 1998; confirming their attachment to the principles of the Charter of the UN and wishing to live in peace and good neighbourly relations with other countries; acting in accordance with the generally recognised principles and standards of international law, have agreed on the following.”
The second article of thisagreement explains the objectives of the created State Union, but only a few of the most important are worth mentioning below: “to ensure the peaceful and democratic development of the participating States of the brotherly nations; to strengthen friendship, prosperity and the raising of the standard of living; to create a common economic area for socio-economic development on the basis of the material and intellectual potential of the participating States and of the market mechanisms necessary for the functioning of their economies”.
Moscow has been coveting Belarus and pressuring its president Lukashenko for many years. This pressure increased when the former KGB officerPutin became Russia’s ruler (1999/2000). Kremlinhas used a wide range of pressure tactics and tools of influence, including various political, economic, cultural and other measures, as well as information operations, to put pressure on Minsk. I will mention here just a few of them – e.g., the milk wars launched by the Kremlin in early 2009, which created some tensions between Minsk and the Moscow. The military exercises Zapad-2017, Zapad-2021 were linked to fears in the West that Russian Federation would occupy Belarusian territory and not withdraw its troops from Belarus. This was apparently also feared by Lukashenko himself. Lukashenko was also frightened by Russia’s growing military aggression towards its neighbours. In 2008 Russia attacked Georgia, in 2014 Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Lukashenko may have feared his country was next. By the end of 2018, pressure from Moscow to force Belarus to further integrate with Russia increased.
Russia had met some of these goals in integration of Belarus by 2020 – for example, the creation of a common economic space –however in 2020there were still some points that were not met and there were also points where Minsk and Moscow had disagreements, including Minsk’s unwillingness to recognise occupied Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. This showed at the time that a certain resistance to pressure from Kremlin still existed in Belarus in 2020. But from the time Lukashenko became a political “corpse” in the Western world– after the crackdown on large-scale protests in 2020 and the Raman Pratasevich affair (on 23 May 2021, a Ryanair plane from Athens to Vilnius was forced to land in Minsk on the pretext that it had been threatened by terrorists fro, Hamas) – Lukashenko’s dependence on the Russia increased. This dependency increased after Russian dictatorPutin made Lukashenko an accomplice in the war in Ukraine (Russia used territory of Belarus for attacking Ukraine) and responsible for war crimes. Despite Lukashenko’s claim that Belarusian troops were not involved in the military conflict in Ukraine, he like a Putin had become a war criminal. Since 2023, when he agreed to place a Russian nuclear weapon on his country’s territory, we see that Lukashenko has quietly become basically dependent or puppet ruler.
Why does Putin need Belarus?
We should now ask last question: Why does Putin need Belarus? The greatest integration with Russian Federation planned for 2024. This raises the question of what will happen with Belarus: will sovereign Belarus (already heavily dependent on Russia) still continue as a state, and will ‘cooperation’ with the Kremlin continue in the form of an alliance and CIS? Could the Belarusian vassal state become Russia’s new annexed territoryand simply be swallowed up by Russia after Lukashenko’s departure from the political scene?
Russia’s military defeat in Ukraine would be a huge and very painful loss for the Kremlin and Russia’s political circles, and a strategic defeat that is becoming more and more real for the Kremlin and Putin’s regime. Russia’s propagandists and political technologists may, of course, declare victory, as if they have achieved their objectives, but the political elite and the oligarchs of Russia may still be very unhappy, leading to a power struggle that may already have begun – at least the public conflict between the Prigozhin and Shoigu-Gerasimov parties has come to the fore. It seems then that Putin’s positions will then start to falter. The Russian people’s mindset, although largely brainwashed by pro-Kremlin propaganda and they still lived in Russian media discourse, cannot be kept in check by propaganda for very long, given that the Russian economy is also in decline and that the sanctions imposed by the West are having an effect, albeit slowly. Putin and his criminal regime may be in desperate need of a new ‘victory’ and Belarus is easy prey.
So it is likely that Kremlin may already be planning to replace Ukraine with Belarus, and as the hope of victory in Ukraine is fading for the Kremlin, it may well start to bet more and more on the Belarus card. Since Lukashenko is no longer the real master of his country, Moscow may make a number of changes.
What can happen?
Moscow may wait for Lukashenko’s death or when he became very weak or force him to step down for “health reasons”. In the latter case, the ageing dictator may even continue to live and enjoy life in some of his villas, and must probably under the watchful eye of the Russian special services. This is a softer variant, as it is not impossible that Lukashenko and his clan may simply disappear. In the aftermath of Lukashenko, the Kremlin could appoint a new so-called president of Belarus, formally elected by the Belarusian people, but also a fake referendum of the Belarusian and Russian people ‘voting’ together for Belarus to join Russia, as was done in the case of occupied Crimea in 2014.
Regardless of whether Belarus becomes a part of Russia, a “new republic” within the Russian Federation, or whether Belarus continues to be a de jure sovereign state, but a de facto vassal state, this will have a negative impact on European security. From a security point of view, the threat to Europe would be further increased, as the Kremlin would then be able to control Belarus and its territory and resources completely and the “island” of Kaliningrad oblast would be linked to Russian territory through Belarusian territory.
Therefore strengthening European borders and security, resilience, closer cooperation with NATO, the EU and the U.S. are therefore a priority./ Professor Vladimir Sazonov, Estonia, for The Geopost/