The war in Ukraine boosts Belarusian opposition

Waves of arrests saw hundreds of political prisoners jailed. Opportunities for open protests against the regime dried up. The dragnet of the country’s secret police tightened.

Lukashenko, long described as Europe’s last dictator, responded to Western sanctions by further yoking the Belarusian state to neighboring Russia. He demonstrated more loyalty to Russian President Vladimir Putin, on whom he now depended for greater political and financial support.

In December, he reversed his country’s position of official neutrality over Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, declaring instead that the Black Sea region was legally part of Russia. In January, he proposed constitutional reforms — approved the following month in a referendum widely seen as a sham — that included provisions that could one day lead to Russia housing nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil.

Then the Ukraine war happened. Belarus, firmly tucked into the Kremlin’s geostrategic orbit, became a staging ground for tens of thousands of Russian troops. Under the guise of a military exercise, Putin’s regime wheeled in S-400 antiaircraft systems and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles. These forces would form the vanguard of the failed campaign to capture Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Far from a proud national leader, Lukashenko has become a cowed accomplice to Putin. Last month, he appeared alongside the Russian leader at a space facility deep in Russia’s far east, where Putin declared to the world that it would be “impossible” to politically isolate his country. All the while, analysts note, the economic pressure on the Russian regime means Lukashenko’s own state apparatus is under a greater strain.

Very few Belarusians back the conflict. Belarusian activists abroad and at home watched in horror as Russian forces launched dozens of missile strikes on Ukrainian targets from Belarusian soil. A mid-March poll by Chatham House found that perhaps as few as 3 percent of the country’s population supported the potential involvement of Belarusian troops in the war against Ukraine. Only 16 percent supported Belarus allowing its soil to be used to wage war with Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine underscores a moment of democratic crisis

No wonder, then, that it has given the Belarusian opposition a second wind. “The position and behavior of Lukashenko has clearly given us a new chance, created new momentum and a new window of opportunity,” Franak Viacorka, senior adviser to Tikhanovskaya, told me. The war, he added, has revealed “Lukashenko’s true face — from the guarantor of independence, he became its main threat, the collaborator selling out the country to Russia.”

Tikhanovskaya was in Washington this past week, calling on top officials in the Biden administration and lawmakers in Congress. The Belarusian opposition wants to see tougher sanctions placed on Lukashenko, including asset freezes on cronyism allies and state firms along the lines of what the West has deployed against Putin and Russia. They hope that the United States and European Union will step up direct support to civil society groups in Belarus, many of which are operating in deeply difficult circumstances both within the country and in exile. And, in what’s perhaps the trickiest ask, they want foreign countries and international organizations to strip recognition of the Lukashenko regime as Belarus’s legitimate government.

If you listen to the opposition now, Lukashenko is a figure teetering on the brink of collapse. His state coffers are depleting at a worrying rate. His paranoia has led to removals of once-loyal officials and the arrests of leaders in the country’s influential trade unions. Whispers abound about jitters among the regime elite, or “nomenklatura,” and the top brass of the security forces.

The regime “can stay alive by inertia for some time but not long,” Viacorka said. The drumbeat of sanctions, mounting uncertainty among Minsk elite, and new strains on the country’s economy have created “the feeling of chronic crisis,” he added. “People are just waiting for the right moment to rise again.”

Pro-Putin European leaders reassert their power

There have are already notable signs of anti-regime activity within Belarus. Dissident networks flared up after the invasion to help undermine the Russian war effort. “Starting in the earliest days of the invasion in February, a clandestine network of railway workers, hackers and dissident security forces went into action to disable or disrupt the railway links connecting Russia to Ukraine through Belarus, wreaking havoc on Russian supply lines,” my colleague Liz Sly reported last week.

These dozens of rail disruptions likely played a role in the chaos and failure of the Russian campaign to take Kyiv. “Given the Russian reliance on trains, I’m sure it contributed to some of the problems they had in the north. It would have slowed down their ability to move,” Emily Ferris, a research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, told Sly. “They couldn’t push further into Ukrainian territory and snarled their supply lines because they had to rely on trucks.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of Belarusians have taken up arms in Ukraine against Russia as part of a brigade dubbed the Kastus Kalinouski Battalion, named after a 19th century Belarusian national hero. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Belarusian dissident Veranika Yanovich explained why she and her husband joined the outfit.

“The motivation is very simple,” she said. “Lukashenko is very dependent on Russia, and the death of dictatorship in Russia will mean the death of the dictatorial regime of Lukashenko.”

While Viacorka stressed that the opposition only supports nonviolent action within Belarus, it backs those joining the battle in Ukraine.

“They understand that this is a fight for Belarus only,” he said, gesturing to the sense that Russian victory in Ukraine would only cement the Kremlin’s hold over affairs in Minsk. “For us, it is a matter of independence and national survival.”