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Belarus sanctions: Time to target Russia? Russia’s steady absorption and stealthy annexation of Belarus continues apace. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and his Belarusian counterpart Roman Golovchenko are busy negotiating roadmaps to “deepen the integration” of the two countries’ gas markets and tax systems. Belarus is also seeking to build special terminals in Russian ports to facilitate the export of potash and refined petroleum products. Kremlin-connected oligarchs and co...

Lukashenka’s succession gambit: Kremlin capitulation or power play? Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on April 22. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Office/TASS via REUTERS) Alyaksandr Lukashenka either just made a bold and brazen power play vis-a-vis Russia or he began laying the groundwork for Moscow’s ultimate takeover of Belarus. Whatever the truth is, the stakes are enormous. On the eve of his trip to Moscow for talks with Vla...

One way to look at Belarus ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s claim last week that he was the target of a US-backed coup and assassination attempt is that this is just the latest in a series of conspiratorial rants by an increasingly beleaguered dictator. But as is often the case in the former Soviet Union, upon closer examination, there appears to be at least some method behind all the madness. Lukashenka’s claim that the plot was approved “by the top political leadership” in the United St...

It turns out that Russia isn’t the only country massing troops on Ukraine’s border. In addition to the large Russian buildup that has gotten the world’s attention in recent weeks, reports surfaced earlier this month that Belarus was also deploying forces and military hardware to its Ukrainian frontier in a manner that appears to be coordinated with Moscow’s actions. Julian Ropcke, a reporter with the German mass-circulation daily Bild, has been meticulously tracking how Russia has be...

The battle for Belarus: Russified regime faces Westernizing society UkraineAlert by Brian Whitmore The “Russification” of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s authoritarian regime in Belarus continues apace. The Belarusian Defense Ministry announced this week that it is moving a tank battalion to its Western frontier near the Polish border, a move that comes in conjunction with a menacing build-up of Russian forces Just days before that announcement, the Deputy Chie...

How do you sanction a problem like Lukashenka? The isolation of Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime is intensifying. Belarusian diplomats are being expelled from Western countries and more face ejection. Major European companies are enduring fierce criticism for doing business in Belarus and are are surfacing that Lukashenka misappropriated European Union funds. The United States and the European Union meanwhile, continue to Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has cal...

Putin’s stealth takeover of Belarus gains momentum As the Russian and Belarusian armed forces launched back-to-back exercises this week, the two countries also announced plans to establish permanent joint military training centers. And just days before the military drills began, a new pro-Kremlin Belarusian political party held its founding congress in Minsk on March 6. Prominent guests included a Russian lawmaker from Ukraine’s occupied Crimean peninsula and an advisor to Moscow-backed ...

Questions remain after Putin hosts Lukashenka They But after Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka met for six hours in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on February 22 and spoke again by telephone the next day, it remained unclear where this troubled and often dysfunctional relationship between Europe’s last two dictators actually stands. According to a confidential unpublished report by the Minsk-based Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies, the...

Innovative opposition defies Belarus dictator Lukashenka The Belarus People’s Assembly in Minsk on February 11-12 was a retro neo-Soviet affair. With the pomp and circumstance of a 1970s-vintage Communist Party Congress, strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka assailed six months of protests against his autocratic regime as a Western-controlled “rebellion” to a room of nearly 3,000 handpicked loyalists under a banner reading Unity! Development! Independence! Days earlier, on February 7, cities ...

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