Time to pay attention to Belarus

Lukashenko likely thought hosting the games would be an opportunity to rally Belarusians around his leadership. Instead, his country is feeling increasingly anxious amid mounting tensions with Russia. Russian president Vladimir Putin's attendance for the closing ceremony on June 30 didn't calm the situation. Ever since winning the presidential election in 1994, Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist, obsessed with staying in power. He disappeared several opponents and critics in the late 1990s. In 2006, he resorted to fraud to secure victory in the presidential election and cracked down violently against his opponents. The United States and European Union in turn slapped sanctions on him and his regime. After Lukashenko released all the political prisoners in 2008, the West eased sanctions; they reimposed sanctions after another bad election and crackdown in 2010. They lifted them almost entirely after the 2015 elections, which did not see a repeat of the crackdown in previous elections; this easing of sanctions also came against the backdrop of Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine. Before Putin, the doddering Boris Yeltsin was Lukashenko's Russian counterpart, and Lukashenko was convinced he could outmanoeuvre Yeltsin. Lukashenko thought a union treaty between Minsk and Moscow signed in December 1999 would be the path for him to run the two countries together. Lukashenko's plans were scuttled, however, when Putin replaced Yeltsin as Russian president. In Putin, Lukashenko found himself with a new Russian leader who had no intention of serving as second fiddle. Putin steadily pursued a more assertive policy toward Russia's neighbours, including invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Pressure on Belarus grew as well, as Putin reduced oil subsidies and other financial support to Belarus. He convinced Lukashenko to join various regional entities — the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Eurasian Economic Union – as part of an effort to establish a Russian sphere of influence. Putin also wants to set up a military base in Belarus, which would take to another level the increasing integration of Belarusian and Russian military and security forces. The recent report of the International Strategic Action Network for Security clearly demonstrates Putin's «creeping assault on the sovereignty of Belarus.» More recently, the Russia-Belarus union, dating back to 1999, is back in fashion, because formalising suc...