Why Belarus Is in Lockstep With Russia Over Ukraine
After breaking away in the early 1990s, Belarus stayed loosely aligned with Russia. That’s changed with the invasion of Ukraine.
(Bloomberg) -- After breaking away from a crumbling Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Belarus stayed loosely aligned with Russia, unlike its neighbors. Now those bonds have strengthened with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Longtime President Alexander Lukashenko has allowed Belarus to be used as a staging ground, while so far avoiding sending his own troops to join the attack, and has cleared the way to potentially host Russian nuclear weapons. The tight embrace is payback after Russian President Vladimir Putin bankrolled his government for many years and came to Lukashenko’s aid following a disputed 2020 election which sparked a popular uprising, repression and sanctions.
1. What role is Belarus playing in the war?
Belarus’s military value to Russia is its strategic position, lying just to the north of Ukraine with a common border several hundred miles long and its southern territory extending close to Kyiv. It also borders on NATO member countries Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. About 30,000 Russian troops may have been in Belarus during joint military drills in February, making it the largest military buildup there since the Cold War, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said before the exercises started. Weapons and other military equipment in the country included S-400 missile systems, the Washington Post reported. Those forces stayed on after the drills finished, paving the way for the Russian assault on Ukraine just days later.
2. What’s the prospect for Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons?
After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Belarus agreed to give up nuclear warheads stationed on its soil. However, the country voted in a referendum on constitutional reform on Feb. 27 to scrap its non-nuclear and neutral status, potentially permitting it to host nuclear weapons and Russian forces. Lukashenko said he could request the return of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus if NATO stationed nuclear weapons in Poland or Lithuania.
3. Who is Lukashenko?
A throwback to a different era, he has led the state for almost three decades. Lukashenko, 67, has been in power since Belarus’s first presidential election as an independent republic in 1994. Belarus, which has a population of 9.3 million, used to rely on its potash exports, as well as imports of discounted Russian crude oil, which it refined and sold abroad at a profit. Now a torrent of sanctions is testing this economic model. Discontent has simmered as Lukashenko failed to diversify the cash-strapped economy. But it was the 2020 election that got people onto the streets, defying riot police and calling for strikes.
4. What happened in the election?
The fairness of previous landslide victories by Lukashenko had been slammed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors elections. In 2020, key challengers to him were detained or kept off the ballot. But Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of jailed opposition blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski, was allowed to register. She drew huge crowds at rallies nationwide. So when officials declared Lukashenko had won 80% of the vote, protests erupted and Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania under pressure from authorities. The upheaval continued for weeks and led to some deaths.
5. How did the authorities respond to the protests?
More than 35,000 people were detained, sparking international condemnation. In May 2021, authorities in Minsk scrambled a Mig-29 fighter jet and used a fake bomb threat to force a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius to land in the Belarusian capital. They arrested a Belarusian passenger, journalist Raman Pratasevich, who had risen to prominence covering the 2020 protests. Three months later, Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she was pressured to leave the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo early for criticizing sporting officials from her country and was granted refuge in Poland. EU members Poland and Lithuania, which have offered shelter to opposition figures from Belarus, accuse Lukashenko of retaliating by channeling thousands of migrants, many from the Middle East, across their border.
6. What’s been the response?
As with its ally Russia, the go-to tool to try to bring Belarus into line has been sanctions. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU agreed to impose further restrictions on Belarus for its involvement. Trade sanctions include a ban on imports from Belarus of goods used for the production or manufacturing of tobacco products, mineral fuels, bituminous substances and gaseous hydrocarbon products, potassium chloride, wood, cement, iron and steel and rubber, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. At the same time, the EU will block exports of so-called dual-use goods and technology, which could be used by Belarus’s military. Financial sanctions announced by the U.S. and U.K. following the Russian invasion also applied to Belarus, while the EU targeted penalties at Belarusian individuals helping the Russian war effort.
7. Weren’t there already sanctions?
Yes. The U.S., EU and U.K. had all imposed measures on Belarus following the Ryanair incident and other developments. The EU slapped trade restrictions on petroleum products and potash fertilizers, the country’s main sources of foreign currency revenue. The U.S. also targeted the country’s Olympic committee and business leaders and companies with ties to Lukashenko. The U.K. barred Belarusian airlines from flying over Britain or landing there and also prohibited the purchase of Belarusian government bonds.
8. What help did Russia offer?
Putin agreed to provide $1.5 billion in loans to the country and struck deals on oil and gas supplies following Lukashenko’s crackdown on protesters. Still, the Kremlin has been trying to reduce the financial burden of keeping afloat Belarus’s inefficient state-dominated economy. Energy subsidies that reached 19% of Belarusian gross domestic product in 2006 had plunged to less than 1% of GDP in 2020, before the election that year that sparked demonstrations and mass arrests. Putin in the past has shown little love for Lukashenko, whom Russia tried to weaken ahead of elections in 2010, but rallied to his support when the street protests erupted.
The Reference Shelf
- A column by Bloomberg Opinion’s Andreas Kluth on nuclear nightmares.
- A Bloomberg article on the seizing of Pratasevich and a story on EU sanctions.
- An Associated Press report on Olympic athlete Tsimanouskaya’s return to Europe.
- The post-election response and crackdown, and EU and U.S. reaction.
- A Businessweek profile of Tsikhanouskaya.
- A New York Times analysis of Lukashenko’s “fading aura of invincibility.”
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