Since Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine began in February, it was widely assumed that Moscow’s closest ally Belarus would also dispatch troops to help out. It hasn’t happened.
But while the recent announcement of a “joint Belarus-Russia military group” is raising fears of a wider war, President Alexander Lukashenko remains hesitant to intervene in Ukraine. Doing so would scuttle his precarious balancing act of placating the Kremlin without imperiling his own power.
In the wake of a mass crackdown against pro-democracy protesters in the summer of 2020, Belarus has been comprehensively sanctioned by Western governments. This has increased Minsk’s economic and political dependence on Moscow. Having helped Lukashenko survive an internal crisis and outside pressure, Putin expected Belarus’s full assistance in the war against Ukraine. Instead, Lukashenko has tried to do enough to appease Putin without provoking a direct confrontation with Kyiv.
To be clear, Belarus has been complicit in the attack on Ukraine by hosting Russian troops, allowing its territory to be used for the initial large-scale invasion, providing logistical support, enabling its airfields to be used by Moscow to launch air attacks and missile strikes on Ukraine, and supplying tanks and other hardware as Russia’s stocks are depleted. Still, Belarusian troops have not been directly engaged in the war inside Ukraine.
RUSSIAN TROOPS POUR INTO BELARUS ‘BY THE TRAINLOAD’
However, after illegitimately annexing four provinces of Ukraine in September, the Kremlin can now assert that Ukraine’s counter-offensive to regain its territories constitutes an attack on the Russia-Belarus Union State, whose integration Putin and Lukashenko have deepened through several political and economic agreements. The joint military doctrine of the Union State, which Lukashenko signed under pressure from the Kremlin, declares that any military offensive against one of its members is an assault on the entire joint state. That said, Lukashenko admitted at the recent Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Kazakhstan that he was not prepared to send Belarusian troops into Ukraine.
Lukashenko displays two main fears of losing power — an engineered substitution by the Kremlin or an internal revolt in Minsk. Putin could replace Lukashenko with a more dependable loyalist if he becomes sufficiently exasperated with Belarus’s limited role in Ukraine. Moscow has penetrated the country’s security services and political structures and has developed contingencies for installing a more compliant leader. For now, Lukashenko may have convinced Putin that he is indispensable for maintaining a repressive status quo in the country and that without him polarization between pro-Western and pro-Russian segments of the population would open the floodgates to Western penetration. But as desperation mounts in Moscow, the Kremlin may be more willing to take greater risks in Belarus.
Lukashenko equally fears that direct military intervention in Ukraine will rebound against him because his Belarusian army is no match for Ukrainian forces. Its defeat could culminate in mutinies and conflicts between military and internal security forces. Such a political crisis could precipitate a potentially bloody struggle for power, public revolts, Lukashenko’s ejection, and Russia’s direct intervention. Despite Moscow’s evident pressure, Lukashenko is looking for any excuse not to intervene in Ukraine. This may also explain his frequent verbal tirades against neighboring Poland and Lithuania and charges that the two NATO members are preparing to invade Belarus. By focusing on the alleged NATO threat along the western borders he can declare that Belarusian troops cannot be deployed in Ukraine as this would leave the country vulnerable to attack.
Lukashenko may also be warning Putin that another popular uprising in Belarus may not be containable, that it could endanger the survival of the Union State, and even encourage the quiescent Russian public to revolt against their own authoritarian regime.
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Janusz Bugajski is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C. His new book, Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture, has just been published.
