Belarus’s leader is stuck between Kyiv and the Kremlin

As the war in Ukraine drags through its fifth year, Russia’s fortunes are beginning to sour. In recent months, the Ukrainian military has made its most significant gains since the summer of 2023. Kyiv’s weapons meanwhile are expanding their range, striking energy facilities deep into the heart of Russia while also pummeling the oil infrastructure in Moscow with strikes that subjected residents to days of “black rain.”

Caught in the middle of all this is Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko.

Often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator,” 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.

He has clung to power through a mix of domestic repression and foreign help from Russia. Minsk remains reliant on Moscow for financial support, economic trade, and defense – it sits under Russia’s 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.

“Lukashenko has nowhere to go and is not in position to break with Vladimir Putin and repeatedly speaks about his loyalty to Russia,” Valery Kavaleuski, a former Belarusian diplomat who opposes Lukashenko and advocates for better EU-Belarus relations, told GZERO.

Now the Russian president wants some payback. For months, Putin has reportedly been urging Lukashenko to increase Belarus’s 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.

“This 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,” said Kavaleuski.

Lukashenko has recently been expanding the country’s armed forces, militarizing schools, and mobilizing civilian institutions for potential combat support, according to a report that the Belarusian opposition recently presented to the Ukrainian government. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyclaimed that the construction of various Belarusian military infrastructure projects along the Ukraine-Belarus border were “nearing completion.”

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’s threats against Belarus appeared to strike a chord: the Belarusian ground stations are no longer in use, according to Zelensky. What’s more, Lukashenko made clear on Wednesday that he doesn’t want to fight Ukrainian soldiers.

“For the first time in years, Lukashenko moved quickly and visibly in response to pressure from someone other than Putin,” according to the Atlantic Council’s Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian journalist who is wanted by Russian authorities. “Kyiv has found the language that works with Minsk – and everyone around Lukashenko noticed.”

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

And while Belarus’s opposition is still under tremendous pressure, Lukashenko may be wary of giving them an opening of any kind.

“The opposition knocking him off his perch still requires a political opening that isn’t visible yet,” said Liubakova. “But the foundations of his position – that Russia is strong, that loyalty to the Kremlin pays, that there is no other leverage – are under more pressure than at any point since 2020.”

All of this means Lukashenko is “increasingly concerned about the direction of the war,” according to Kavaleuski.

“He 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.”