Which way Belarus turns depends more on Moscow than Minsk

Conventional democratic leaders do not usually feel the need to carry an assault weapon as they go about their duties, still less to have photographs of themselves fully armed, in case the approaching mob catches up with them, plastered all over social media. Alexander Lukashenko, the increasingly beleaguered dictator of Belarus, however, is no conventional leader; and his fate and that of his country will not be decided through conventional means.

It seems increasingly likely that, wily and ruthless as he undoubtedly is, Lukashenko will fail to achieve the ultimate ambition of all dictators throughout history – to die peacefully in his own bed. For one thing, the protesters in Minsk – and increasingly in other parts of Belarus – show no signs of going away. They may have been blocked from staging a mass protest dangerously close to the presidential palace, but they are making their displeasure about the rigged election and the stagnation of their country plain whenever they can.

Like other revolutions in the former soviet bloc over the past three decades, there is a momentum to such popular movements that is difficult if not impossible to contain, and certainly not without the Russians helpfully crushing dissent. A nation of 9 million that yearns for change surely cannot be denied it, even if their ruler unleashes the army on them? The people, through protests, strikes and civil disobedience, will surely have their final say? Lukashenko is weaker than he looks. Will the Kremlin save him?

Two questions now arise in that context. First, will Belarus’s security forces fire on their own people? History suggests not all will, and some elements may even side with the resistance to Lukashenko. Things could easily escalate.

Second, then, will Russia intervene? Vladimir Putin has already hinted at such a move, with a “police force” ready to restore order in its closest neighbour, economically and culturally speaking. There is a parallel with Russia’s proprietary attitude towards Ukraine, which it also regards as within its Stalin era-style sphere of influence.

In Belarus, as in Ukraine before it, the pull of the EU and western values challenges Russia’s traditional hegemony, and Russia is determined to resist it.

Which way Belarus turns depends more, in other words, on Moscow than Minsk. Belarus, smaller and poorer than Ukraine, is much more closely integrated with Russia, with Russian bases on its soil, and a military alliance with Moscow, as well as forming an economic “common market”. It will find it even more difficult than Ukraine to defy President Putin.

If Lukashenko can somehow ride out the challenge to his authority, the Kremlin will be well pleased, though Putin might ask Lukashenko about his medium-term retirement plans. If Lukashenko loses control, then it is difficult to see Russia standing by while a potentially troublesome replacement, such as Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who challenged Lukashenko in the discredited presidential poll, takes over. Even if she and her allies had no intention of, say, forging closer links with Ukraine or with EU and Nato neighbours Poland and Lithuania, Russia could not tolerate such uncertainty and (perceived) humiliation as the potential “loss” of Belarus to the west.

The appearance in these latest protests in Minsk of the red-and-white flag of the short-lived Independent republic of Belarus, dating back to 1919, is to Russia a challenge to its traditional Tsarist and Soviet-era dominance of its neighbour. The Kremlin will say “niet” to any of that, and make known it is prepared to use force, hoping that will be sufficient to deter Tikhanovskaya from moving into the presidential palace. If not, then President Putin will probably use force, emboldened by the west’s weakness over his invasion of Ukraine and generally feeble response to Russia’s cyberattacks, political interference, assassinations and other acts of aggression.

Putin, in other words, will most likely instal some more emollient and adept but no less reliable alternative to succeed President Lukashenko. Nothing so crude as the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968 would be needed to reassert Moscow’s power in Belarus – more likely, as more recently in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, it will be Russian agents thinly disguised as Belarus militia or police, but heavily armed and effective nonetheless in putting down any insurgency.

The great irony in this tragedy is that Lukashenko might actually have won a free election, albeit narrowly. In pushing his luck with a claim of an unbelievable 80 per cent level of support (on a 91 per cent turnout), he merely made himself and his regime look ridiculous and, paradoxically, vulnerable. The vote-rigging was far too crude and obvious, even by Belarussian standards.

Sooner or later, like Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic republics and so many other former Soviet colonies, Belarus would have felt the gravitational pull away from Russia and towards the European Union. But that process is slow in Belarus, and could be managed more skilfully and without pretending to command near-unanimous popular support. Had he been less greedy and less vain, Lukashenko would now have no need to sleep with his Kalashnikov by his bed. As things stand, he is running out of friends in Minsk and, very possibly, in Moscow.