Liberty Case

Is Belarus the Real Beneficiary of Putin’s War?

By Artyom Shraibman

In mid-September, just two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin startled the West by hosting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a rare summit, he met with another autocrat who has been even more crucial to his war in Ukraine: Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko. Taking note of the new entente with Pyongyang, Lukashenko proposed that he and Putin could now join in a “three-way cooperation” pact with Kim, presumably to help Russia create a broader autocratic bulwark against the West.

With the United States and much of Europe distracted by a new war in the Middle East, the conflict in Ukraine has for the time being receded from view. But behind the scenes, it has continued to evolve in important ways. One of the most striking, and least noted, may be its unexpected effects on neighboring Belarus. In fact, Lukashenko’s September meeting with Putin is only one of several instances over the past few months in which the Belarusian leader has underscored his country’s special role in the war.

Before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenko let tens of thousands of Russian troops mass on Belarus’s soil, thus enabling Putin to attack from the north as well as from the east, vastly shortening the distance to Kyiv. More recently, Lukashenko has allowed Russia to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, giving Putin an additional means with which to threaten escalation.

And in June, following the attempted mutiny of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Lukashenko became the public face of negotiations to persuade the Wagner paramilitary company leader to stand down in exchange for safe passage to Belarus, a face-saving solution for Putin that helped avert a more serious crisis in Moscow. In return for these actions, Putin has showered Belarus with a variety of financial supports and provided strong backing for the autocratic Lukashenko regime itself.

Although Western officials have long noted that Putin and Lukashenko are closely aligned, the exact nature of their relationship is poorly understood. Many, noting Minsk’s extensive dependence on Moscow, view Lukashenko as little more than a puppet or stooge of the Russian president, and Belarus as a sort of vassal state. But as Lukashenko’s actions during the war make clear, Belarus has become a crucial military asset in its own right, and Moscow is also to some extent dependent on Minsk. As a result, Lukashenko maintains a certain autonomy, albeit diminishing, which Moscow tolerates because it cannot risk endangering the stability of Belarus.

Perhaps most significant, Lukashenko’s own aims for the war likely differ significantly from Putin’s. For the Belarus regime, a prolonged conflict or stalemate—even if it comes at a high cost to Russia—would be far preferable to an outright Russian victory. For in this unresolved situation, Lukashenko can maximize his own leverage in Moscow while containing threats to his legitimacy both from abroad and from home.

LOOKING BOTH WAYS

On paper, Lukashenko and Putin have always had much in common, starting with their shared background and rise to power. Both were born in the 1950s, and both were shaped politically by the trauma of the collapse of the Soviet Union. On coming to power—Lukashenko in 1994 and Putin in 1999—both set out to clear their domestic political landscapes of any significant competition and turn their governments into full-fledged autocracies. Lukashenko, in this regard, is the more experienced player, having created a dictatorial system much faster and then having held onto power for nearly 30 years.

Until around 2020, however, the two leaders’ foreign policies were somewhat divergent. Whereas Putin positioned Russia and its sphere of influence against the West, a strategy he began hardening in the mid-2000s, Lukashenko played a more intricate game. For many years, he consistently played the West, which was seeking less repression in Belarus, against the Kremlin, which has long attempted to bring his regime directly under its thumb. Notably, after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, Belarus was viewed by Western leaders as a credible third party that could host negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and European powers—the process that led to the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015.

With this contrasting orientation, Putin and Lukashenko spent much of the first two decades in constant bargaining. Moscow sought to provide fewer subsidies to the Belarusian economy and tighten its control over its neighbor. In 1999, Russia had launched the Union State project—an attempt to unite Belarus with Russia in a supranational framework—and Putin tried to take this further after he came to power, bringing Minsk directly under Moscow’s control. In theory, the Kremlin should have been able to force Lukashenko to bend: without Russian resources, including billions of dollars’ worth of cut-rate energy, cheap loans, and other subsidies, his Soviet-style economic policies would simply run the country bankrupt in a few years.

Source : Foreign Affairs 

Follow Us: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Youtube |