Belarus’s president Aleksandr Lukashenko has been missing from public view since being taken ill during a Victory Day parade in Moscow on 9 May. If Belarus’s dictator dies or is incapacitated Vladimir Putin – his neighbour, patron and only regional ally – will have a vast, even existential, problem on his hands. It was mass
The fraudulent election of Aleksandr Lukashenka as president of Belarus on August 9, 2020 surprised no one. Everyone expected him to ‘win,’ but very few wanted him to. Now, it is more important than ever for the United States to continue to call out Lukashenka’s grave human rights abuses.
George Barros
Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the ongoing crisis in Belarus to increase his sway over self-declared Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has long stonewalled Moscow’s persistent efforts to integrate Belarus into Russia. A sustained protest movement following Lukashenko’s overt manipulation of Belarus’ August 2020 presidential election has seriously degraded Lukashenko’s ability to resist Russian pressure to integrate Belarus into Russia – a key Kremlin campaign ISW’s Russia Team has analyzed extensively in over 70 published assessments in 2020.[1]
The Kremlin has achieved major milestones in its pressure campaign to subordinate Belarus’ military to Russia since August 2020. Russian military units have been deploying to Belarus on a near-monthly basis under the rubric of “joint exercises” since August 2020. These exercises could support a sustained Russian deployment to Belarus.[2] The Kremlin leveraged the crisis in Belarus t