MOSCOW — As protests continue to rock Belarus, the country's beleaguered strongman Alexander Lukashenko has turned East.
Fighting for his political survival, the Belarusian president is trying to frame his problems as part of a geopolitical conflict between Moscow and the West, appealing to Russian President Vladimir Putin — his “older brother” and “friend in times of need” — to support him in the face of unrelenting pressure to step down.
Footage of the two leaders’ meeting in Sochi earlier this week showed a perspiring Lukashenko either diligently taking notes when Putin was speaking or desperately trying to get his attention as the Russian president sat, legs open wide, adjusting his tie or tapping his foot in apparent boredom.
In part, the meeting seemed designed to show that Lukashenko was closing a door on the West and opening wider the door to Russia.
Throughout his 26-year rule, Lukashenko has sought to play Europe off against Russia, leveraging Belarus’ position as a buffer state between the two — the Sochi meeting seemed to indicate he has abandoned that tightrope act and is now willing to trade Belarus’ autonomy away if it means he himself can stay in power, even if only nominally.
Russia has promised military aid, stated that a reserve force is at the ready should an intervention be required and announced there will be monthly joint military exercises in western Belarus.
But despite the optics of the Sochi meeting, it is much too soon to call it game over. Seen from Europe, Belarus is not yet lost to Russia.
Lukashenko is notoriously unreliable, his loyalties shift with the wind and his behavior today is no guarantee of his behavior tomorrow.
On the eve of the contested August 9 election, the Belarusian leader accused Russia of attempting to destabilize Belarus after arresting 33 alleged mercenaries. Now he is warning of a NATO attack and dismissing the protesters as Western agents.
For Lukashenko, casting his own political fate as part of a geopolitical struggle between East and West is a purely pragmatic decision. Ever since the EU rejected the August 9 vote as illegitimate, Moscow is the beleaguered ruler’s only remaining lifeline.
For now, Putin is begrudgingly playing along and propping up Lukashenko because he'd rather manage the Belarusian's gradual downfall than have him toppled by a popular uprising.
Russia has promised military aid, stated that a reserve force is at the ready should an intervention be required and announced there will be monthly joint military exercises in western Belarus. It has also sent Russian state journalists to Belarus for propaganda purposes and extended a $1.5 billion loan to Minsk, which will allow Lukashenko to restructure its — largely Russian — debt.
Nothing has been made public yet, but there is little doubt that this is a quid pro quo involving, possibly, the privatization of Belarusian assets or closer integration between the two countries which would give Putin more control.
If Putin is playing along, it is not because he trusts Lukashenko, but because it taps into his own polarized worldview. He is not one to let an opportunity for greater influence in a neighboring state pass him by. There are plenty of signs that Moscow wants Lukashenko gone, too — just at its own pace.
Talk of a constitutional reform plan for Belarus, touted by the Kremlin, and echoed by Lukashenko, is in part an (unsuccessful) attempt to placate the protesters. But it is also a signal to Lukashenko that even if he survives the current political crisis, it won’t be business as usual.
For Moscow, too, the trade-offs are still uncertain. The Kremlin might buy time by keeping Lukashenko in power. But by doing so it risks alienating Belarusian society, which is traditionally sympathetic to Moscow and is not backing down from its demands to see the back of Lukashenko. And as far as the protesters are concerned, those who back him — whether it be with batons or with money — are in the wrong.
“I regret that you decided to conduct a dialogue with the usurper and not with the Belarusian people,” opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said from exile in Lithuania ahead of the Sochi meeting.
There are plenty of signs that Moscow wants Lukashenko gone — just at its own pace. | Alexander Zemlianichenko/AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, there is only so much the EU can do. It cannot even begin to compete with Moscow in terms of the economic, historic, cultural and social ties linking the two neighboring countries. Nor does it have Moscow’s clout over Belarus’ security apparatus.
“Personal sanctions don’t change the situation on the ground. The individuals on the list don’t care about being on it. On the contrary, they consider it a medal of honor,” said Artyom Shraibman, a political analyst based in Minsk. Unlike the Russian elite, they also “do not have assets in the EU that can be frozen.”
Stimulus packages, like that suggested by Poland on Thursday, “could encourage the elite to think about a post-Lukashenko future,” he added, “and act as a carrot for when the country will be in desperate need of cash.”
Most urgently, the EU’s immediate role may lie in providing humanitarian support for victims of police brutality and political refugees, and moral support by backing the protesters’ wish to make their own choice.
"Belarusians have always considered Russians our brothers, but if Russia sticks to its current politics that will no longer be the case” — Svetlana Alexievich
“The EU has spent decades ‘educating’ Belarusians to want to live in a democratic and open society. And now that the Belarusian people have woken up, and are rejecting tyranny, it would signify a betrayal to let them fend for themselves,” Pavel Latushko, a former Belarusian diplomat and culture minister who is now a leading member of the anti-Lukashenko opposition council, told POLITICO from exile in Poland.
“We need the EU to adopt a clear and unambiguous position on what is happening in Belarus while proposing a way out of the economic crisis that awaits the country once it transitions to a democracy,” he added.
Meanwhile, the opposition council has called on Moscow to engage in a dialogue about a viable political alternative. The message they are trying to drive home is that free elections would most probably result in a president who would be sympathetic to Russia and its interests. That is, if Russia doesn’t overplay its hand.
In the words of Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich, the last member of the opposition council still in Belarus who has not been detained: "Belarusians have always considered Russians our brothers, but if Russia sticks to its current politics that will no longer be the case.”
For now, Moscow is pretending not to hear that message. Lukashenko can only hope Putin continues not to listen.
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