Putin Plays Pragmatic With Belarus

 

BELARUS

Let’s Fly the White, Red and White

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is not backing down.

The leader of the opposition in the former Soviet republic of Belarus fled to Lithuania after she lost an election to President Alexander Lukashenko on August 9. She feared for her life and the lives of her family after Lukashenko was declared the winner by an unbelievable landslide.

As the New York Times explained, European Union leaders would not recognize the vote.

But Tikhanovskaya supported the protesters who took to the streets of the capital of Minsk and Belarusian cities to decry election fraud. “They were shouting for their future, for their wish to live in a free country, against violence, for their rights,” she told the BBC. “We have no right to step back now – if not now, we’ll be slaves and our people understand this and I’m sure we will stand till the end.”

National Public Radio produced a photo essay that suggested another so-called “color revolution” like the ones that upended regimes in Ukraine and elsewhere could be in the offing. The country’s dismal economy and Lukashenko’s dismissal of the coronavirus haven’t helped his standing among ordinary people.

“Belarusians have finally emerged as a nation,” Alesia Rudnik, a researcher at the Minsk-based Center for New Ideas, told Slate.

Lukashenko’s security forces have cracked down on the protest, killing at least two and detaining thousands, Reuters wrote. Police summoned Nobel-winning author Svetlana Alexievich to answer questions about her role in the unrest, too.

His actions have only inflamed tensions and potentially lost him allies as factory workers strike in opposition to violence. He’s installed Russian “specialists” in the country’s state-owned television network to change hearts and minds, added Bloomberg.

The role of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Lukashenko’s fate is interesting. The two countries are closely allied militarily and diplomatically, but in recent years Lukashenko has been making overtures to the West in an attempt to improve his obviously inferior status relative to Putin.

Lukashenko is making the case that US- and EU-backed pro-democracy activists are seeking to overthrow him now and move on to Putin later. But, rather than rescuing Lukashenko, Putin is more likely to strike a deal that’s good for Russia with whoever replaces him, argued international analyst Ian Bremmer in Time. Keeping his options open, Putin has, however, put together a police force that could intervene.

Indeed, while Russian officials have said they are vying for control of the country in a long-running conflict with the West, the Financial Times concluded that Putin would opt for a “controlled succession” in Belarus.

That might be better than no succession at all, but the people should be careful what they wish for.