Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is rightly seen as a shock that reset the post-Soviet space. After February 2022, most states in the region moved to put distance between themselves and Moscow. A few, by contrast, treated the war as an opportunity and accepted the role of Kremlin satellite.
Belarus does not fit either pattern. The decisive fork in the road came not in 2022 but in 2020, when Alexander Lukashenko staged an election, whose result is still disputed. The question is simple: did Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya win outright in the first round, or was her decisive lead confined to Minsk? Lukashenko lacked the repressive capacity to stay in power after that failure, and he turned to Moscow. From that moment his loyalty to Vladimir Putin became almost total.
Everything that followed — including the Russian drive on Kyiv from Belarusian territory — flowed from that choice. In 2022 Lukashenko had no realistic way of avoiding it. By 2024−2025, however, Minsk had recovered some room to maneuver among Russia, China, the United States, Ukraine and the European Union. By then the domestic crisis had been crushed by mass repression, and Donald Trump had returned to the White House with little interest in putting human rights first.
How the war closed the question of Lukashenko’s power
Before Russian troops crossed into Ukraine through Belarus, Lukashenko had, in a political sense, fallen into a coma. The worst days of his career were 16−17 August 2020, exactly a week after the disputed presidential election. The authorities decided to answer the protests by putting loyalists on the streets. The result was unconvincing: small groups of loyalists disappeared against the backdrop of a vast opposition crowd. Many concluded that his presidency was finished. Even seasoned loyalists thought so.
The most humiliating episode was his visit to the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant. Real workers shouted “Go away” in unison, and he may have felt for the first time how precarious his position had become. Moscow understood this too. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov groped for a cautious formula and produced a line that the media immediately amplified: “That does not mean the elections were ideal. Of course they were not. There is ample evidence of that. The Belarusian leadership itself acknowledges as much and is trying to enter into a dialogue with citizens protesting against what they see as an infringement of their rights.”
The implication was clear: something had to be done about the “imperfections,” and Moscow expected concrete steps from Minsk — a recount at selected precincts, limited concessions (few remember that after the 2011−12 protests Russia formally eased the rules for registering parties), or even a redesign of the political system. Minsk loyalists saw the need for change, and so did Lukashenko. “Come, sit down, we’ll work on the constitution and put it to a referendum. (…) And I will transfer my powers to you under the constitution,” he promised the factory workers. “Of course I will leave someday — in a year, or in two. That depends on you.” He was probably not speaking only out of fear, or only to calm the crowd. He also understood that Moscow would not defend his hold on power indefinitely, even after formally recognizing the election results.
Moscow also discussed another option: replacing Lukashenko with a more convenient figure. That idea was heard most often in the government’s economic bloc, at Gazprom and Uralkali — the structures that had to work with him most closely. In the end the inertial scenario won. A new constitution was indeed discussed, in a closed working group headed by the pardoned opposition figure Yury Voskresensky. It was a demonstrative exercise that produced no real change in how the country was run.
What mattered about the new constitution was not its content but the moment of its adoption. It was approved in a referendum on 27 February 2022. By then heavy fighting was already under way around Kyiv involving Russian forces that had entered from Belarus. When the Belarusian defense ministry announced that Russian units would remain after the Allied Resolve-2022 exercises (10−20 February 2022), both pro-government and opposition experts assumed that Minsk was simply insuring itself against protests over the referendum. Then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began and swallowed everything else, including Belarus’s decorative constitutional reform. For Lukashenko it was a deliverance. Throughout 2022, Moscow and Minsk spoke of solidarity in the face of a common Western threat. In that atmosphere even a hint of criticism of the election two years earlier looked out of place. By becoming the first foreign leader to back Russia’s aggression, Lukashenko took every awkward question off the table.
By 2024, no one among Russian loyalists was still asking whether Lukashenko should be allowed to run for president again. Minsk had even acquired the ability to pressure Russian media when they published material or hosted people unwelcome to the Belarusian regime. Since then Russia and Belarus have tried to merge their lists of extremists so that the two autocracies would share the same enemies. In June 2026, Gennady Lepeshko, chair of the standing commission on national security in the House of Representatives of Belarus’s National Assembly, said that a unified list was already in force. Lists of extremist materials remain separate: otherwise the Belarusian authorities would not have had to add pages linked to Alexei Navalny on their own.
Contradictions around the Union State have not gone away. The 1996 promise of a single economic space with a common tax system, currency and some shared institutions has still not been fulfilled, even after Belarus lost de facto sovereignty — at least in the military sphere. That is why, in 2026, marking the thirtieth anniversary of the Treaty on the Community of Russia and Belarus, the two governments had to inflate modest achievements such as the abolition of roaming charges.
The two sides have also talked about “harmonizing” legislation, but any discussion of supranational bodies is shut down hard in Minsk. For Lukashenko this is a virtue of his alliance with Russia, not a defect: unlike EU member states, he retains full independence. For now, the “special relationship” between Moscow and Minsk consists mainly of very intensive personal contact between the two leaders. They meet regularly and have taken to spending two days together.
Minsk’s turn to the East
Belarus’s transformation into a full Russian satellite naturally reshaped its foreign policy and its economy. Both acquired more and more Russian features, even though Lukashenko did not want that. In 2021 he spent the entire year trying to recover the right to speak to EU countries as a political actor in his own right — including by a thoroughly barbaric method: directing flows of irregular migrants toward the Polish and Lithuanian borders.
This was a calculated operation by the Belarusian authorities and security services. They had already launched new flights to Minsk from Iraq — not only from Baghdad but from Erbil, Basra and Sulaymaniyah. Migrants also used other routes, via Turkey and the UAE. To accelerate the process, an information backdrop and a network of intermediaries were required. As migrants later told journalists, social media at one point filled with rumors that the EU could be reached through Belarus. The same channels recommended tour firms that booked tickets and helped with visas. It later emerged that the state tour company Tsentrkurort coordinated the process in Minsk. The irregular migrants even had a Telegram chat through which they ordered taxis to a camp in the forest.
Lukashenko’s calculation was simple: Poland and Lithuania would realize that they could not avoid talking to him and would be forced to recognize his authority. The plan has still not worked. Apart from the Moscow-friendly governments of Hungary and Slovakia, no one in the EU has restored relations with him. The modest result of the migrant crisis was two phone calls from Angela Merkel. Even she did not recognize him as the legitimate president: the press release referred to her interlocutor as “Herr Lukashenko.”
Europeans also tried to deal with Putin, who at the time looked to them like the more rational senior partner in Minsk. Moscow did not want to become a full participant in the process, and Putin advised the Europeans to talk to Minsk directly. That suited Lukashenko. The Russian security services apparently knew about the operation to provoke a migration crisis but did not take a direct part in it. Sanctions against Aeroflot that the EU discussed in November 2021 were never imposed for lack of evidence. The reprieve for Russian airlines was brief: immediately after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, all Russian carriers were banned from flying to the EU.
Contemporary Belarus is actively shifting diplomatic resources from West to East. On 1 September the country closed its embassy in Finland and at the same time opened a mission in North Korea, with which it is also discussing a mutual visa-free regime. The process began almost a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The actual opening of new missions came later — they take time to prepare. Since 2022 Belarus has exchanged embassy openings with Zimbabwe, where Lukashenko travelled to sell agricultural machinery, and is preparing to do the same with Myanmar. The consular network is expanding as well: representations have appeared in Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City and Hong Kong.
The largest exchange of missions is with Russia. Branches of the Belarusian embassy in St Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Ufa, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok have been converted into consulates general. The same is expected in Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. New embassy offices have appeared in Krasnodar and Voronezh. Offices of the Russian embassy are due to open in Vitebsk, Mogilev and Gomel during 2026, in addition to the existing consulates general in Brest and Grodno.
All of this broadly matches Minsk’s economic priorities. Trade between Russia and Belarus stood at $ 38 billion in 2021; by 2025 it had reached $ 51.9 billion, and by some estimates around $ 55 billion. Russia’s share of Belarus’s total trade rose from 41−45 percent in 2020−21 to 60 percent in 2025. Trade with China almost doubled, from $ 4.6 billion in 2020 to $ 8.86 billion in 2025. Trade with the EU remained at about $ 8 billion.
Another example of borrowed Russian practice is Minsk’s recruitment of migrants from Pakistan and Uzbekistan — an organized intake of the kind Russian officials have long advocated.
“Austria without the Anschluss”
One of the paradoxes of Belarusian diplomacy has always been the ability to combine intimidation and irrationality — Nixon’s “madman theory” — on some issues with complete calm and even pragmatism on others. That approach survived 2022.
Missile strikes on Ukraine from Belarusian territory stopped at the end of 2022. In 2023 Russian aircraft capable of delivering those strikes left Belarusian airfields. After that, the relay stations Volodymyr Zelensky recently mentioned were almost the only remaining form of assistance to the Russian military. That, too, now appears to be gone.
On the other hand, Lukashenko greeted with visible enthusiasm Moscow’s wish to station the new Oreshnik missile and tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. He even presented these initiatives as his own, as if he himself could decide when the weapons would be used. How true that is even in the case of Oreshnik is hard to judge (in the case of nuclear weapons the scenario is entirely ruled out). In March the Belarusian leader spoke of buying a missile system from Russia, and Moscow did not contradict him.
Lukashenko mixes threats with pacific rhetoric and plays skillfully on his audience’s emotions. He rejects rumors that Belarusian troops will sooner or later enter the war against Ukraine or the Baltic states, and he keeps a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainians across his territory (it can be used to return to Ukraine from Russia, but not to enter Belarus).
Even after 2022 he remained faithful to a principle that has followed him throughout his years in power: he never closes borders of his own accord. That is why, despite almost frozen relations with the EU, 160,000 EU citizens visited Belarus from the beginning of 2026. Looked at over several years, the figures invite skepticism. Belarusian border guards are probably counting entries rather than people — including those who regularly cross for cheap petrol.
Lukashenko began experimenting with unilateral visa-free travel for Western countries as early as 2017. He allowed citizens of 80 states, including the entire EU, the United States, Canada and Japan, to enter without a visa provided they arrived and departed only through Minsk airport. The decision produced a row with Moscow: the FSB even introduced a border zone that had not existed before. Minsk did not drop the idea and in 2018 extended the visa-free stay to 30 days. The real breakthrough came after the full-scale war in Ukraine. In April 2022 Belarus opened its land border to citizens of Latvia and Lithuania, in July 2022 to citizens of Poland, and in July 2024 to citizens of another 35 EU countries. Residents of Lithuania, Poland and Latvia received an extra concession: they may stay for 90 days rather than 30.
Unexpectedly simple entry rules give Lukashenko a strong propaganda argument: the problem, he says, is not him but the authorities of neighboring states. He, by contrast, lets Lithuanians and Poles have their teeth treated far more cheaply than at home. It also brings in a noticeable flow of hard currency.
There is a paradox here too. U.S. citizens have needed visas for Belarus since 2021 — even though, after Donald Trump’s return, Washington has become markedly more accommodating toward Lukashenko. The American and Belarusian leaders even spoke by phone, and this time Lukashenko was addressed as “highly esteemed president.” Trump also lifted some sanctions on Belarus after two waves of prisoner releases. That was attributed to Lukashenko’s political cunning and to the enthusiasm of John Coale, the diplomat Trump assigned to Belarus. A recent interview with former U.S. special representative for Ukraine Keith Kellogg suggests a different reading of American diplomacy. “When we spoke with Lukashenko, the main goal was to open another channel of communication. Because we know that Lukashenko talks to Putin,” Kellogg said.
That shows that Putin and Lukashenko have swapped roles. Five years ago the West was convinced that in the Moscow-Minsk pair the more rational partner was Putin. Now it is the other way around: to get a message to Putin, one has to speak to Lukashenko. The Belarusian leader clearly enjoys the part. Some compare it to Austria’s position after the Second World War. A large share of that country’s population supported the Anschluss with the Third Reich. After the attack on the Soviet Union, Austrians were drafted into the Wehrmacht in large numbers. Yet Vienna is not customarily accused of complicity in Nazi aggression; it is more often treated as “Nazism’s first victim.”
Belarus is almost always associated with Moscow, but the two are still treated differently. Belarus, for example, was not cut off from Visa and Mastercard entirely. Lukashenko can still claim that he merely adapted to Putin and did everything possible to preserve sovereignty. To a significant extent he succeeded. No supranational institutions have emerged between the two capitals. And that means that if the Belarusian leader outlasts his Russian counterpart, he will keep his room for maneuver.
