Chronicle Of A Death Foretold: The Case Of Belarus, Russia's Most Loyal Satellite Country

January's "presidential elections" in Belarus hardly attracted any attention except from experts that have been engaged in studying East European and Russian politics for decades.[1] Alyaksandr Lukashenka got another "mandate" (the seventh in a row, by the way) with official record-high support of 86.8 percent of his subjects: This time he decided to put this fictitious number even higher than in 2015 – and, as then, no protests erupted in the country.[2]

President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenka (Source: RIA Novosti)

I would say that this quietness was as predictable as the escalation of 2020 (two months before that election, I wrote several commentaries suggesting the Belarusian autocratic ruler will face huge protests if he once again declares himself president) – but both in 2020 and in 2025 the "elections" produced results that should be studied and investigated as deeply as possible if one wants to understand what is going on both in Russia and its most loyal satellite country.

I have been following the Belarusian politics for years not only because it long ago became a part of Russia's politics, but also because I spent my entire childhood in the then Soviet Byelorussia, graduated from high school there, learned the beautiful language of the local people and made a lot of friends with many of whom I maintain close relationships.

Vladislav L. Inozemtsev

Many Belarusians Understood That Their Country Has Chosen A Wrong Way

I was shocked back in 1994 when the Belarusian people picked Mr. Lukashenka, a clinical idiot who just 12 years prior was discharged from the Soviet army after being diagnosed with "mosaic psychopathy" and put under medical surveillance,[3] to serve as the republic's president, defeating the highly respected professor of physics Stanislav Shushkevich, leading Belarusian pro-Western nationalist Zenon Poznyak, and experienced industrialist Vyacheslav Kebich in the only free and fair elections the country has ever held (I may add that at that time, the Kremlin did its best to support Mr. Kebich's candidacy).[4] Later, year after year, I saw the country populated by decent European people, becoming a testing ground for many autocratic practices and habits that were later copied by Russia's president Vladimir Putin (ten years ago I depicted Russia as Belarus' "most talented and consistent student,"[5] and since then the trend has only becoming more obvious as political regime evolved into a kind of dictatorship).

Getting a little ahead of myself, I would argue that by the end of the 2000s, many Belarusians understood clearly that their country had chosen the wrong path – with two major factors contributing to such a conclusion. On the one hand, it became clearly visible how Belarus, which had concluded a strong union with Russia first in 1996 and later became part of the so-called "Union state" in 1999,[6] was lagging behind its neighbors, most notably Poland, with which it had had strong ties for decades. On the other hand, however illusionary the Putin-Medvedev castling of 2008 might be seen, by 2010 it became a formal confirmation that a change in leadership, in rhetoric, and in foreign policy is possible even in Russia – and therefore by 2010 Belarusian society became, if not prepared for a change than at least agreeing with it if it should happen. This is why in 2010, when the list of candidates included such respected opposition leaders as Andrey Sannikov, Yaroslav Romanchuk, Vladimir Neklyaev, and Nikolay Statkevich,[7] among several others, after Mr. Lukashenka "won" in the first round with close to 80 percent of the votes, thousands of people went to Minsk's central square for a mass protest that was brutally suppressed. Of all the opposition candidates only one, the well-known libertarian economist Mr. Romanchuk currently living in exile in Ukraine, has not been jailed after the elections.[8] This was the first clash between Mr. Lukashenka and the nascent Belarusian civil society being lost by the latter.

A Blow That Paralyzed Belarusian Society

The Western countries did not recognize the election's results and cut ties with Belarus – but several years later Mr. Lukashenka arose as a statesman advocating the peaceful resolution of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict that broke out in 2014, and European leaders, President François Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, rushed to Minsk to negotiate the issue with Vladimir Putin. Two "Minsk Agreements" had actually returned Mr. Lukashenka to the global political scene, repaired his relations with both Europe and Russia, and allowed him to be once again "reelected" in 2015 without any visible protests. I would say that these developments had a strong impact on ordinary Belarusians as, since WWII, this nation values peace and tranquility over almost everything else. But, of course, nothing has changed since, and as Mr. Lukashenka's reign became a quarter-of-a-century old in 2019, it grew clear that "enough is enough." This time another important factor emerged – it was Belarusian IT-business that has made great progress in 2010s and achieved worldwide respect; many of the Belarusian IT companies were headquartered abroad at that time,[9] and entrepreneurs were dreaming of a free and democratic home country. With Viktor Babariko, a banker; Valery Tsepkalo, a former director of Belarusian hi-tech park; and Sergey Tikhanovsky, the best-known Belarusian YouTuber, as main challengers, the presidential elections of 2020 became a crucial turning point – and I remember that, several months before the votes were casted, I had published several articles arguing that these elections would not proceed in a quiet and predictable manner.[10]

Everybody knows what happened after all three contenders were banned from elections and Svyatlana Tikhanovskaya, Sergey's wife, was approved for the ballot:[11] thousands of Belarusians formed long lines to cast their votes and Mr. Lukashenka lost the elections, as many observers said, getting not more than 30 percent of the vote.[12] In the clashes that followed, several people were killed, thousands arrested, Mrs. Tikhanovskaya was expelled from the country and many other prominent candidates and their staff leaders jailed. As Belarusian human rights activists claim these days, no less than 5,300 people received long prison terms for their participation in the 2020 protests that were peaceful and may have turned into another "color revolution."[13]

What happened next and what caused the recent silence was absolutely different from what happened after 2010. Mr. Lukashenka this time was ready for a full-scale conflict with the West that resulted in many sanctions imposed immediately after the elections. He even ordered to intercept a Ryanair jet en route from Athens to Vilnius in Belarusian airspace to detain an opposition blogger that was onboard the plane – and got a dozen more sanctions,[14] many of them similar to those the European Union imposed on Russia after Putin's full-scale aggression against Ukraine in 2022.[15] But the most important consequence of the 2020 repressions was the dramatic exodus of Belarusians who fled their country at a scale not seen in Europe since the Soviets' suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968. According to various estimates, between 300,000 and 350,000 people left Belarus between 2020 and 2022,[16] and the trend continues bringing the overall number of those who have left to seven to eight percent of the country's adult population (in the case of Russia, a move of the same proportion would bring the number of emigrees to five million people, compared to the approximately one million people who had left in 2022, with many of those already returning).[17] I would argue that such a blow paralyzed the Belarusian society, which, to my mind, may be unable to recover in any foreseeable future and rise once again for freedom and liberty.

Belarus Is A Dead Society

The outcome of the recent Belarusian "elections," as almost everything that has happened since 2020, indicates two important issues.

On the one hand, it proves that even in an European-minded post-Soviet state that has close ties with Western countries, civil society may be easily dismantled and suppressed through repressions. People can adapt to changing conditions and refrain from not only participating in politics but also in talking about it. I would add that it also shows that for the last 40 years in all the post-Soviet nations the share of people that might be called "active" in the political sense, has been almost negligible, and with some of them silenced, some squeezed out of the country, and several hundred jailed, society becomes completely immobilized. Moreover, there is very little hope that almost any activities of either Belarusian or Russian emigrants may influence the situation within their home countries since the remaining locals are deeply engaged in their everyday lives and focus only on their personal survival under the current circumstances.

On the other hand, it seems that Belarus has been for decades considered in the West as a part of Russia's "sphere of influence" in the very same way that Warsaw Pact countries were viewed during the Cold War. Belarus, being a part of the so-called "Union State" since 1999, is even more deeply integrated into Russia than the former Soviet satellites were in the old times, and this prohibits the West from any exceptional reaction to any events happening there. I would add that the whole story of Ukraine became possible only because both the West and Russia were not completely sure to whose "sphere of interests" it has belonged after the crash of the Soviet Union – contrary to the Baltic States, which have been considered "Western," and Belarus which has definitely "belonged to Russia."[18] This, to my mind, explains perfectly why the European powers never considered the option of assisting the Belarusian opposition more actively than they did as its members fled their country seeking a refuge in Europe.

After the 2025 election, I would argue Belarus is a dead society that will tolerate any possible turn in its history. President Lukashenka is now only a ceremonial figure who can be deposed and substituted by any of his allies of whom Moscow would approve. Though the polls suggest people credit him with preserving Belarus' independent status, the country can be incorporated into Russia as several new "subjects of the Russian Federation" with a referendum on the issue producing the same 95-plus percent approval rating that was declared in Crimea in 2014. The mood of the people is dominated by a single wish for their personal situation not becoming worse – and promising that, any power elite can do anything it may aspire. This might be considered a sad story, but it tells a lot about what may happen with a country if the dictatorship develops itself inside it slowly and gradually, without any real resistance from outside...

*Dr. Vladislav Inozemtsev is the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project Special Advisor, and Founder and Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies.