{"id":2332,"date":"2026-06-26T18:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/2332\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T18:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:09:08","slug":"between-a-kyiv-and-a-kremlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/2332\/","title":{"rendered":"Between a Kyiv and a Kremlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the war in Ukraine drags through its fifth year, Russia\u2019s fortunes are beginning to sour. In recent months, the Ukrainian military has made its most significant gains<\/a> since the summer of 2023. Kyiv\u2019s weapons meanwhile are expanding their range, striking energy facilities deep<\/a> into the heart of Russia while also pummeling the oil infrastructure in Moscow with strikes that subjected residents to days of \u201cblack rain<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caught in the middle<\/a> of all this is Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko.<\/p>\n

Often referred to as \u201cEurope\u2019s last dictator,\u201d Lukashenko has ruled over former-Soviet Belarus, a country of 9 million people that borders both Russia and Ukraine (as well as the Baltics and Poland), ever since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. <\/p>\n

He has clung to power through a mix of domestic repression and foreign help from Russia. Minsk remains reliant on Moscow for financial support<\/a>, economic trade<\/a>, and defense<\/a> \u2013 it sits under Russia\u2019s nuclear umbrella. Ever since Lukashenko violently quelled the domestic protests of 2020 against his regime, the West has snubbed Belarus, applying sanctions and other pressure that have made the country yet more reliant on the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cLukashenko has nowhere to go and is not in position to break with Vladimir Putin and repeatedly speaks about his loyalty to Russia,\u201d Valery Kavaleuski, a former Belarusian diplomat who opposes Lukashenko and advocates for better EU-Belarus relations, told GZERO.<\/p>\n

Now the Russian president wants some payback. For months, Putin has reportedly been urging Lukashenko to increase Belarus\u2019s role in the invasion of Ukraine. Minsk already provides logistical support, and has hosted Russian military drills as well as tactical nuclear weapons, but Putin wants more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis enhanced involvement could range from offering more use of Belarusian airspace, to infrastructure to conduct Russian drone attacks, to Russian military entering Ukraine from Belarus, to Belarusian armed forces engaging in combat against Ukrainians,\u201d said Kavaleuski. <\/p>\n

Lukashenko has recently been expanding the country\u2019s armed forces, militarizing schools, and mobilizing civilian institutions for potential combat support, according to a report<\/a> that the Belarusian opposition recently presented to the Ukrainian government. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed<\/a> that the construction of various Belarusian military infrastructure projects along the Ukraine-Belarus border were \u201cnearing completion.\u201d <\/p>\n

But Lukashenko is reluctant to increase his involvement too much. For one thing, Zelensky threatened to strike Belarus if it continued to allow Russia to use its ground stations for drone strikes. Lukashenko has, of course, already seen what Ukraine is able to do to Russia and it is unlikely that his forces could mount any better defense against Ukrainian drones. In fact, the Ukrainian president\u2019s threats against Belarus appeared to strike a chord: the Belarusian ground stations are no longer<\/a> in use, according to Zelensky. What\u2019s more, Lukashenko made clear<\/a> on Wednesday that he doesn\u2019t want to fight Ukrainian soldiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in years, Lukashenko moved quickly and visibly in response to pressure from someone other than Putin,\u201d according to the Atlantic Council\u2019s Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian journalist who is wanted by Russian authorities. \u201cKyiv has found the language that works with Minsk \u2013 and everyone around Lukashenko noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, experts say, deeper involvement might risk a backlash from his own population. Although public opinion polling is sparse in Lukashenko\u2019s police state, a poll<\/a> from the outset of the Ukraine war in 2022 showed only 5% wanted their country to get involved. Given Russia\u2019s fortunes in the war, it\u2019s hard to imagine that figure has risen since then. <\/p>\n

And while Belarus\u2019s opposition is still under tremendous pressure, Lukashenko may be wary of giving them an opening of any kind. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe opposition knocking him off his perch still requires a political opening that isn\u2019t visible yet,\u201d said Liubakova. \u201cBut the foundations of his position \u2013 that Russia is strong, that loyalty to the Kremlin pays, that there is no other leverage \u2013 are under more pressure than at any point since 2020.\u201d <\/p>\n

All of this means Lukashenko is \u201cincreasingly concerned about the direction of the war,\u201d according to Kavaleuski.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is afraid not only of Russia, but also of Ukraine. On a larger scale, Belarus is under severe pressure from all its five neighbours. This layout has created dangerous conditions for sovereignty and independence of Belarus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the war in Ukraine drags through its fifth year, Russia\u2019s fortunes are beginning to sour. In recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32,34,56,55,77,51,1155,45],"class_list":["post-2332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-belarus","tag-lukashenko","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-zelensky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}