Recent developments in Belarus and in U.S.-Belarusian relations deserve attention even while the world is understandably focused on the Middle East.
The Trump administration, in particular U.S. special envoy John Coale with President Donald Trump’s backing, pressed Belarus’ dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka to release several hundred political prisoners over the past few months, including six U.S. citizens. Some 250 were released last month alone.
In response, the U.S. Treasury has removed potash producer Belaruskali and its subsidiaries from its sanctions list, along with Belinvestbank, Belarus’s Development Bank, and the country’s Finance Ministry. In January, before the latest release of prisoners, the State Department announced that Belarus became a charter member of the newly formed Board of Peace.
President Trump spoke to Lukashenka last August, the first American president to do so in decades, and praised the Belarusian dictator as “highly respected.” In February, President Trump declared, “We have a good relationship, and the leader is somebody that I have a lot of respect for. With Belarus, we have a very good relationship.” After the latest release of prisoners, President Trump indicated a readiness to meet with Lukashenka “to give my warmest THANK YOU to the President for doing this, and I look forward to being with him at the next Board of Peace meeting!”
Before rushing ahead with an invitation to visit the United States, however, the administration should recall that Lukashenka is the longest-serving dictator in Europe. He came to power through elections in 1994 and has made sure through major repression and stolen elections that he would never lose that power. His reliance on Moscow for his continued rule has undermined Belarus’ sovereignty and independence.
Lukashenka’s brutal reign
For years, Lukashenka has disappeared opponents and critics, thrown opposition figures in prison so that they could not challenge him, rigged elections, cracked down brutally on protestors demonstrating against his blatant efforts to steal the 2020 election, and forcibly deported many Belarusians from their own country after their release from prison.
According to the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna, Belarus still holds some 900 political prisoners, whom Lukashenka sees as bargaining chips in his relations with the West. As Elena Korosteleva, professor at the University or Warwick, noted, “Why engage, with a murderous Lukashenka regime, who uses political prisoners as slaves to profit from, to replenish his concentration camps to continue his dealings?”
In addition, Lukashenka played a key role in Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Putin, who has propped up Lukashenka for years, used Belarusian territory to launch his drive toward Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. By allowing Russia to launch its campaign from Belarusian territory, Lukashenka has the blood of Ukrainians on his hands. The Russian military continues to use Belarus as a launching pad for attacks on Ukraine, and Lukashenka has agreed to host Russian nuclear weapons.
Lukashenka has weaponized migrants and refugees, forcing them across the borders into Lithuania and Poland, and launched balloons into Lithuanian airspace to cause disruption. Last month, Lukashenka visited North Korea for the first time. Like Belarus, North Korea has provided vital support to Russia for its war against Ukraine.
Groundhog Day
The Trump Administration may be trying to lure Lukashenka away from Putin and Russia, but it should know that Lukashenka has spent decades playing Russia and the West off of each other, testing which side could offer him a better deal. He remains in power due to support from Putin, making him beholden to his Russian counterpart.
I dealt with Lukashenka’s regime when I was a deputy assistant secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s second term in office. Following Lukashenka’s ugly crackdown after the 2006 Belarusian presidential election, he threw a number of individuals in jail, including his main challenger. The United States, working closely with our European allies, imposed sanctions on Lukashenka’s regime to press for the release of these individuals. It took almost two years and a steady escalation of sanctions, but this policy worked in winning the freedom of the imprisoned individuals.
Starting in 2009, the West eased sanctions, but Lukashenka returned to his old ways, rigging the 2010 presidential election and cracking down again on his opponents. The West reimposed sanctions, and this cat-and-mouse game played out over the next decade. It reached its zenith with the 2020 presidential election, which Lukashenka clearly lost to Sviatlana Tsikhouvskaya.
Determined never to lose power, Lukashenka declared victory nonetheless and forced Tsikhouvskaya, whose husband had already been imprisoned, to flee to neighboring Lithuania. Like in the movie Groundhog Day, Lukashenka unleashed another bloody crackdown, and the West imposed new sanctions.
Last month, the International Criminal Court in The Hague officially opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Lukashenka and his security apparatus against political opponents. That should serve as a break on U.S. efforts to rush to normalize relations with the Lukashenka regime. As Nigel Gould-Davies, the former British ambassador to Belarus, put it, “Lukashenka has repeatedly played this game for over 20 years: release of political prisoners to secure sanctions relief until the next crackdown. This never achieved lasting change then and would not do so now. On the contrary: It would stabilize a Russian puppet and convey European weakness. The winner would be Moscow.”
U.S. Special Envoy Coale, who has spent countless – even booze-filled – hours with Lukashenka, has also spent significant time with Belarus’ democratic opposition, including Tsikhanouskaya, Belarus’ democratic opposition leader. She released a statement last month threading the needle between thanking the Trump Administration for its work in freeing political prisoners while reminding everyone that “many people remain behind bars. Our goal is for everyone to be released and for repression to finally end so that each and every person can return home.”
Securing the freedom of individuals who never should have been in prison in the first place is a good thing. Coale deserves praise for his efforts. Lifting some – not all – U.S. sanctions that were imposed to win their release is appropriate. But let’s not forget that the person who released those individuals is the same one who threw them in prison in the first place.
The U.S. administration should think twice before welcoming Europe’s longest-serving dictator to the United States.
