Lukashenko — Between a rock and a hard place
What will the man with the moustache do?
In recent years Lukashenko has tried to play the West and East against each other. In 2018 at the EAEU summit in St Petersburg Lukashenko publicly confronted Putin on the prices that Belarus was paying for gas compared to Germany. Putin responded by saying Belarus pays a significantly lower price than Germany due to Belarus’ alliance with Russia. However Lukashenko challenged this notion by saying Germany’s higher price was largely due to Germany being located 3000km further away from Russia than Belarus. Lukashenko then no doubtedly touched a nerve when he brought up the fact that Belarus had stood shoulder to shoulder with Russia in their fight against Germany and now this is how Russia treats its loyal ally.
Lukashenko’s emboldened and emotional ploys have not swayed Putin as he has continued to apply pressure on Lukashenko and Belarus. In January 2020 Russia ceased oil exports to Belarus.
Putin said, “Russia was not ready to subsidize energy supplies without a closer economic integration with Belarus”.
Despite the fact that Belarus relies on Russia for 80% of its energy needs and oil exports make up 20% of Belarus’ GDP Lukashenko stayed firm and insisted he would not sign off on the economic integration until the issues with oil and gas supplies were resolved. Putin is vying for more control over Belarus, viewing the country as rightfully falling within Russia’s iron sphere of influence. Lukashenko understands Putin wants to turn Minsk into a Russian province, allowing the Russian state to instill a Moscow kleptocracy and plunder Belarus.
Lukashenko does have leverage over Putin. Russia relies on Belarus to transport its energy to Western Europe who source 10% of their needs from Russia. With Russia generating 20% of its GDP and over 50% of its Federal budgets from the energy sector Putin can not afford to lose Belarus as a key partner.
In response to the stalling economic talks between the two nations Lukashenko has looked to reinvigorate Belarus’ relationship with the United States. On the 1st of February 2020 the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo visited Minsk making him the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Belarus in 26 years. The energy crisis was at the top of the agenda with Pompeo stating the US is capable of supplying Belarus with its energy needs. Due to Belarus’ location and the subsidies it can receive from Russia this appears to be largely postering. Due to Lukashenko’s anti democractic and anti liberal philosophy which are considered mortal sins in the US if Lukashenko did extend his hand for help the conditions imposed by the US would likely be too much of a price for the proud Belarussian to accept. Lukashenko has already refused IMF loans in 2018 after they were conditional on liberalising the economy. However, there is no doubt that Putin would be threatened by Lukashenko’s willingness to explore new allies on the geopolitical stage.
There are theories that Lukashenko’s recent acquaintance with the US has played a role in the US stirring tensions within Belarus adding fuel to the recent protests.
With experts such as Alexey Dzermant from the Belarusian Academy of Science calling the protests, “ a color revolution”. Dzermant says there are similarities between Euromaidan and the protests in Belarus notably, “turning the social problems into internal conflict, using social networks and the Internet to raise public disapproval of authorities and external management of all the processes”.
The Euromaidan revolution has been revealed to be largely financed by a conglomerate of US backed NGOs and foundations including International Renaissance Foundation, whose key funder is billionaire George Soros, Omidyar Network, established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and National Endowment for Democracy, funded largely by the U.S. government. The US sensing weakness in Belarus following the conflict between Lukashenko and Putin may have pounced at the opportunity to overthrow the so called last dictator of europe. If Lukashenko does survive this attempted coup he may be less willing to entertain Western advances in the future.
Due to Belarus’ cultural and geographical proximity to Russia and economic reliance on its Eastern neighbour Lukashenko is forced to cooperate closely with Putin. Lukashenko has been playing a shrewd game of hardball by strongly negotiating with Russia while also showing Putin he is willing to approach foreign nations if Russia is unwilling to cooperate with Belarus. Lukashenko has stayed true to his principals by refusing to take Western money in exchange for liberalising the Belarussian economy and society. Lukashenko should stick to his principles while signalling to Putin his relationships with other nations are not bluffs and continue with his hardball strategy to ensure Belarus retains a certain level of autonomy, extracts the best deal it can from Russia and can forge its own future without too much interference from Western and Eastern powers.
