Takeover by Stealth: The Curious Case of Russia’s Belarus Policy

ABSTRACT

After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Aleksandr Lukashenka and his regime began drifting away from Moscow’s orbit of influence. Less than eight years later, Belarus has turned into a client state, serving as a bridgehead for Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine. How could this happen? The existing literature tends to emphasize ideological and regime-type factors. Such accounts, however, are incomplete. This article presents a realist patron–client theory that incorporates the dimension of power politics to explain the causes, conduct, and consequences of Russia’s Belarus policy.

Introduction

After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Belarus began drifting away from Moscow’s sphere of influence. President Aleksandr Lukashenka and his government established close ties with the new Ukrainian leadership, made efforts to normalize relations with the West, and adopted a de facto neutral stance on the war in the Donbas. Moreover, Lukashenka positioned himself as a staunch defender of Belarusian sovereignty against Russian intrusions. In a memorable press conference, he told reporters, “Those who think that the Belarusian land is part as what they call the Russian world, almost part of Russia, forget about it! Belarus is a modern and independent state” (AP News 2015).

Less than eight years later, the situation looks rather different. Lukashenka’s government has allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory as a staging ground for the Russian assault on Kyiv; it has complied with Moscow’s demand to use Belarus’s train network for the transit of Russian troops and military equipment; and it has permitted Russia to carry out missile and drone strikes from Belarusian airspace. In addition, Minsk is backing Moscow diplomatically by, among other things, consistently siding with Russia in the United Nations General Assembly (Preiherman 2022). In short, Belarus has turned into a Russian client state. How could this happen?

For many observers, the answer is obvious. Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenka are two power-hungry authoritarian rulers who share a disdain for liberal democracy. Hence, the two have formed an axis of autocrats seeking to prevent the spread of liberal values and democratic governance practices in the post-Soviet space (see, e.g., Dickinson 2020; Gould-Davies 2020; Whitmore 2021a). This argument has a certain prima facie plausibility and is intuitively compelling. Upon closer examination, however, it struggles to explain several important facets of the case. For one thing, it fails to account for the fact that the Kremlin undermined Lukashenka and his regime in the run-up to the 2020 Belarusian presidential elections through media campaigns and economic pressure. Furthermore, as this article will show, Moscow’s post-election support for Lukashenka did not come free; it was conditioned on greater political and military influence in Belarus. Finally, the “autocratic axis” argument overlooks that Russia provided Lukashenka with significant financial aid and security assistance long before Putin became president, starting in the mid-1990s under the more democratic Yeltsin government. All of this suggests that regime-type considerations, while undoubtedly important, can only tell part of the story.

This article seeks to revalidate the relevance of power-political factors in explaining Russia’s Belarus policy. Indeed, numerous analysts have pointed out that geostrategic considerations play an important role in shaping Moscow’s relations with Minsk, but it is usually noted in passing and without fully unpacking the underlying drivers and implications. Nor has the existing scholarship tested this line of argument systematically and against alternative explanations. The purpose of this article is to take a step toward filling that gap.

To this end, it presents an analytical framework that bridges insights from realism and the patron–client model in international politics. The resulting approach – which I call realist patron–client theory – argues that major powers face strong geopolitical and status-based incentives to surround themselves with a sphere of influence. Hence, major powers (acting as patrons) provide economic, diplomatic, and security assistance to governments of neighboring small states (acting as clients) that are willing to accept some degree of subordination in foreign and military affairs. Further, the theory holds that such patron–client arrangements, once established, tend to be inherently unstable and fraught with tensions. The reason is simple. Great-power patrons want to minimize the costs of patronage while seeking to maximize their influence. Clients, for their part, want to extract as much benefit as possible while giving up as little autonomy as necessary. Moreover, realist patron–client theory suggests that when a local client state is on the verge of exiting from the great-power patron’s orbit, the latter will adopt a so-called “coercive binding” policy (Izumikawa 2018, 110). This entails the use of economic carrots and sticks coupled with various forms of diplomatic pressure and subversive activities. In doing so, the great-power patron seeks to rein in the recalcitrant client state and, if possible, draw it into a closer embrace.

This approach, I argue, goes a long way to explain why and how Moscow tightened its grip on Minsk, resulting in what some observers have aptly called a “soft annexation” of Belarus (Whitmore 2021b). To unpack and substantiate my argument, I proceed in four steps. The article’s first section presents the theoretical framework, while the second section provides some background on Russia’s relationship with Belarus prior to 2014. The third section traces Russia’s Belarus policy in the period 2014–2019, demonstrating that Lukashenka’s more independent-minded foreign policy prompted Moscow to pursue a coercive binding policy. The fourth section shows how Moscow took advantage of Lukashenka’s increasingly fragile regime in the wake of the 2020 Belarusian presidential elections to reassert and enhance Russia’s politico-strategic domination over Minsk. The final section summarizes the article’s main findings and discusses implications for the war in Ukraine, before reflecting on the broader applicability of realist patron–client theory for explaining great power–small power relations in contemporary world politics.

Analytical Framework: Realist Patron–Client Theory

The concept of patron–client relations, which originated in anthropological studies, seeks to capture the dynamics between actors of unequal material or social power. It suggests, most basically, that patrons provide some valued goods or services to clients in exchange for a degree of compliance and subordination. The concept has been adapted over the years to illuminate substantial issues of international politics, including great power–small power relations during the Cold War (Efrat and Bercovitch 1991; Shoemaker and Spanier 1984), US-led counterinsurgency operations (Ladwig 2016, 2017), UN voting behavior of microstates (Veenendaal 2017), and the foreign policy practices of unrecognized de facto states (Berg and Yüksel 2022; Kolstø 2020; Kosienkowski 2019). In what follows, I integrate insights from this body of literature into the corpus of realist scholarship to explain why and how major powers seek to dominate weaker neighbors.

Geopolitics, Status, and the Pursuit of Regional Primacy

Drawing on different strands of realist theory, Götz (2016, 2019, 2022) has shown that major powers are structurally predisposed to pursue regional primacy. This means that major powers have strong incentives to constrain the policymaking autonomy of neighboring small states, especially in foreign and military affairs. There are two principal reasons for this. First and most basically, major powers seek to prevent neighboring small states from becoming military bridgeheads or allies of potentially hostile extraregional powers. Nobody, after all, wants to have forward-operating bases of great-power rivals on its doorstep (Mearsheimer 2014a). In extension, major powers have strong incentives to gain access to intelligence-gathering and military facilities on the territory of neighboring small states. Access to such installations – including airfields, seaports, and radars – is important for protecting the land, air, and sea approaches to the major power’s homeland. Moreover, access to such facilities is useful as they can serve as launchpads for expanded power projection into regions further afield (Harkavy 2007).

A second factor propelling the quest for regional primacy is status. As recent international relations scholarship has shown, the establishment and maintenance of a regional sphere of influence has been, and still is, one of the most important markers of great-power status (Khong 2019, Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Renshon 2017; Wohlforth 2009). For sure, status seeking can also take more benign forms – hosting the Olympics or starting a space program, for example. However, regional primacy is a key marker of great powerhood because, as Murray (2019, 63) points out, “it relies on asymmetrical recognition.”¹ This means that other states either implicitly or explicitly tend to acknowledge the major power’s dominant regional position, which, in turn, contributes to enhancing its international standing and status.

In essence, a combination of geopolitical and status-related factors impels major powers to exert influence over smaller countries in their geographical vicinity. Toward that end, major powers can employ both punishments (actual or threatened) and rewards (actual or promised). Following Götz (2022, 5–6), the choice of tools is strongly influenced by the foreign-policy orientation of neighboring small states. Simplifying somewhat, if a neighboring small state wants to establish close security links with an extraregional power, the local great power will apply punishments and highly assertive instruments to prevent that from happening, including the threat and use of force. Conversely, if a neighboring small state forgoes any attempt to align with an extraregional power, the local great power will support the small state in question – and its incumbent leadership – through economic, political, and military means.

While the use of highly assertive instruments of statecraft in the pursuit of regional primacy has received substantial scholarly attention, as it often results in high-stakes crises and armed conflicts, the latter remains a much less explored topic. Drawing on the existing literature about patron–client relations, I unpack in the following the mechanics by which major powers seek to maintain or enhance the allegiance of neighboring client states.

Reward Binding and Coercive Binding

Major powers use a variety of economic, security-related, and political tools to prop up and support obedient client states. Economic assistance can take various forms, such as preferential trade agreements, favorable loans, foreign aid, or cheap energy. Security assistance refers to such things as arms transfers, training of military officers, intelligence cooperation, and information sharing regarding internal and external threats. Political assistance in turn can range from the blocking of sanctions at the international level to domestic-level support for the client state’s leadership, including the deployment of political advisers. The purpose of all these activities is to reward compliant behavior, cement the geopolitical loyalty of incumbent elites, and protect them against domestic rivals who might adopt a different foreign policy posture. This type of strategy is known in international relations parlance as “reward binding” (Izumikawa 2018, 110; see also Yin 2022, 487–492).

Over time, however, patron–client arrangements often become fraught with problems. As Bercovitch (1991) has shown in his work, “Behind the formal façade of loyalty […] there is an informal reality of tensions, disagreements and shifting directions of influence [in patron–client arrangements].” The reason is simple. The interests of patrons and clients are rarely if ever fully congruent. Great-power patrons seek to exercise some degree of control over their clients at acceptable costs. Client states, for their part, want to extract as many benefits as possible while avoiding undue influence by the patron. As Ladwig (2016) puts it, “The client will try to manipulate the dynamics of the relationship with its patron to maximize the amount of political, economic, or military assistance it receives, while seeking to maintain its autonomy” (see also Shoemaker and Spanier 1984, 17).

Building on this, numerous scholars have argued that from a client state’s perspective, the ideal situation is to play two (or more) patrons off against each other. In doing so, the client can maximize its gains and minimize concessions. For example, in a broad review of the foreign policy strategies of microstates, Veenendaal (2017, 7) found that “client states can strengthen their bargaining position by catering to multiple patrons, or even by simply threatening to do so.” Relatedly, a number of recent studies suggest that a so-called “hedging” approach is an alluring strategy for small states, which entails cultivating reasonably good relations with several major powers at the same time. This approach avoids the security-related trade-offs inherent to the traditional strategies of either bandwagoning or balancing. Moreover, if a small state can play off two great-power rivals, it may be able to extract rents and other forms of economic assistance from both sides (Ciorciari and Haacke 2019; Lim and Cooper 2015; Smith 2020). The upshot is that smaller countries have strong incentives to engage with regional and extraregional powers simultaneously to increase their room for maneuver and maximize the inflow of financial resources.

Given this, the question becomes: How will a great-power patron respond when local client states start moving toward a hedging policy and send ambiguous signals regarding their alignment choices? As noted above, realist theory holds that great powers in general are vigilant against attempts by smaller neighbors to build closer ties with rivaling powers from other parts of the world. It follows that a great-power patron will grow wary when client states located in its geographical vicinity move toward adopting a hedging policy. After all, this entails a more independent course in international affairs; in the worst case, it might be the first step toward realignment with an extraregional power. Stated differently, a client state casting about for new alignments generates considerable nervousness in the great-power patron’s mind.

In response, great-power patrons will resort to so-called “coercive binding” strategies to draw a drifting client state back into a closer embrace (Izumikawa 2018, 110; Yin 2022, 487–490). Coercive binding strategies involve a mix of assertive measures accompanied by promised rewards. This can take the form of threats of economic sanctions and punishments (such as trade restrictions, freezing of financial assets, and cancellation of foreign aid) alongside promises of economic concessions if the client state gives up its plans to pursue a hedging policy. Similarly, in the military sphere, great-power patrons can couple punitive measures and positive inducements to elicit compliance. “Military assistance,” as Rice (1986, 240) notes, “is but one good that dominant powers are able to provide for political elites in smaller states, and since security is critical, the promise to give or the threat to withhold that assistance can be a powerful lever.” Finally, there are various carrots and sticks in the political realm that great-power patrons can employ. This includes such diverse things as the issuing of formal protest notes, the cancellation or postponement of official state visits, and perhaps most important, interference in the client state’s domestic affairs. The patron can fuel internal discontent and promote political opposition movements, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the client state’s incumbent government vis-à-vis internal threats. At the same time, the great-power patron can offer itself as a backer of the incumbent government – if the latter gives up its plans to pursue a hedging policy. As Shoemaker and Spanier (1984, 22) point out, “A desperate client in a high-threat environment may be willing to grant considerable concessions to the patron, which it would not extend under less threatening conditions.” Knowing this, a great-power patron is disposed to prefabricate or facilitate such conditions at the international and/or domestic level when a local client state strays too far away from its orbit of influence.

In essence, realist patron–client theory suggests that the foreign-policy orientation of local client states determines – not completely but to a large extent – what type of strategy the great-power patron will pursue. When a client state acts largely in accordance with the great-power patron’s strategic interests and displays a high degree of subordination in foreign and military affairs, the patron will pursue a reward binding policy. When a client moves toward a hedging posture, the patron will shift to a coercive binding policy.

To be clear, none of this should be taken to mean that great powers always get their way. Nor does it imply that small states are simply pawns of major powers. Small states, as described above, have their own interests and ambitions. Realist patron–client theory simply suggests that major powers will work hard to preserve a network of loyal and pliant client states in their geographical neighborhood, for both geopolitical and status-based reasons. To achieve that objective, major powers engage either in reward binding or in coercive binding, depending on the client state’s foreign policy posture. Equipped with this analytical framework, the next sections explore Russia’s Belarus policy.

Before proceeding, however, two caveats are in order. First, a number of area specialists and international relations scholars of other theoretical persuasions have leveled scathing criticisms at realist-inspired accounts of Russia’s “near abroad” policy. It is argued that realism is a morally bankrupt and deeply flawed theory, which provides a poor account of Russian behavior in the former Soviet area (see, e.g., Motyl 2023; Specter 2023; Tooze 2022). Other scholars, however, contend that realist-inspired approaches shed considerable light on Moscow’s actions (see, e.g., Götz 2015; Mearsheimer 2014b; Smith and Dawson 2022). As should be clear by now, this study joins the latter group. But this does not mean that other theoretical perspectives cannot contribute to our understanding of Russia’s Belarus policy.² In other words, the analysis presented below is best understood as a contribution to an ongoing scholarly debate rather than the final word on the subject.

Second, it is important to stress that evidence at this stage can only be preliminary. Access to all the relevant documents – such as transcripts of high-level meetings in the Kremlin and diplomatic cables – is at best many years away. To compensate for this, I triangulate data from four different types of sources: publicly available policy statements by Russian decision-makers, open-source documents such as foreign policy concepts and military doctrines, leaked material from the Kremlin administration, and the work of area specialists. Along the way, I contrast my analysis to alternative explanations and outline where they complement each other and where there are points of difference. In doing so, I seek to assess (to the extent possible) the relative significance of domestic and international factors in shaping Russia’s Belarus policy.

Background: Russia’s Reward Binding Policy toward Belarus

After a brief period of soul-searching in the early 1990s, the Russian elite – including President Boris Yeltsin and his team – more or less openly expressed its ambition to dominate the post-Soviet region. Moscow wanted to circumscribe the ability of smaller neighbors to act independently, especially on matters of foreign and defense policy. To that end, it applied a broad range of instruments. These included diplomatic and economic pressures, propaganda campaigns, military threats, and meddling in the internal affairs of states that were unwilling to follow Moscow’s lead (for overviews, see Hill and Jewett 1994; Porter and Saivetz 1994).

Belarus, however, unlike many other post-Soviet republics, adopted a rather pro-Russian foreign policy stance. Early on, Minsk decided to join the Moscow-centered Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and its security arm, the Collective Security Treaty. Belarus also concluded several bilateral cooperation agreements with Russia (Marples 1999, 58–68; Rontoyanni 2005, 47–50).

With the election of Lukashenka as president in 1994, this trend only intensified. Russia and Belarus signed a series of treaties (the 1996 Community Treaty, the 1997 Union Treaty, and the 1999 Union-State Treaty) that envisioned deep political and economic integration. But many provisions of these treaties were only partially if at all implemented. This kind of “virtual integration” served President Yeltsin’s domestic agenda, as it burnished his credentials among communists and pan-Slavic nationalists in Russia (Danilovich 2006). In one area, however, Russian–Belarusian cooperation went beyond the politics of symbolism – in the field of military and security affairs. At the Kremlin’s behest, the two countries started working toward the establishment of an integrated air defense system and created a joint regional grouping of forces. Additionally, Russia acquired the right to use free of charge two military sites in Belarus: an early-warning radar station near Baranovichi and a naval communication center at Vileika (Martinsen 2002; Rontoyanni 2003, 124–126).

In return, Russia supplied Belarus with oil and natural gas at heavily discounted prices. The Yeltsin government also backed Lukashenka against internal opponents. In October 1996, for example, Yeltsin sent a high-ranking political delegation to Minsk – led by then–prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin – to broker a “compromise” between the Belarusian parliament and Lukashenka. This “compromise” effectively condoned Lukashenka’s plan to carry out a controversial referendum that centralized power in his hands (Marples 1999, 95–96). In other words, the Yeltsin government provided Lukashenka’s regime with economic subsidies and political protection in exchange for geopolitical loyalty and military cooperation.

This reward binding policy served Russian interests well. For one thing, the Lukashenka government’s deference in military and security affairs implied a degree of hierarchy that comported with the self-image of the Russian elite as a “great power.” For another, Belarus’s location made it vital for Moscow to keep Minsk in its orbit. A peek at the map shows why. Russia and Belarus share a 1,300 km (770 miles) long border with each other. Moreover, Belarus (via Lithuania) provides an overland link to Russia’s exclave on the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad. If anything, Poland’s and the Baltic states’ accession to NATO (in 1999 and 2004, respectively) accentuated the strategic-military importance of Belarus for Russia. Belarus now effectively served as a buffer protecting the ground approaches to Moscow and St. Petersburg from NATO “mainland.” Belarus also abuts what has become known as the Suwalki Gap, a 65-km (40-miles) wide strip of territory connecting Poland with Lithuania, which is NATO’s only land connection to the Baltic states. Thus, in the event of a larger conflict or war, Russia could use Belarusian territory as a launching pad to seize and close off the Suwalki area.

Belarus, in short, became a cornerstone of Russia’s security architecture in the western reaches of the post-Soviet space. As Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy put it, “As a result of integration with Belarus, Russia will acquire a number of incontestable geopolitical privileges: direct access to the borders of the Central European region; removal of the potential threat of the so-called Baltic–Black Sea belt isolating Russia; [and] elimination of the military strategic isolation of the Kaliningrad special defense region” (Nezavisimaya gazeta 1999). Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Shakhrai likewise concluded, “Real unification between Russia and Belarus would be the most effective answer to NATO’s expansion” (RFE/RL 1997). Of note is that not only military hardliners but also members of Russia’s liberal opposition recognized the strategic importance of Belarus. Even the late Boris Nemtsov, one of the leading liberals in Russia and a staunch opponent of backing Lukashenka’s authoritarian regime, stressed the significance of close ties with Belarus, as this provided Russia with “direct geopolitical and military access to the West” (cited in Ambrosio 1999, 78). The fact that politicians of various ideological hues agreed on this matter is a strong indication that structural incentives – rather than domestic political or personal interests – were at play.

This does not mean that Moscow’s relations with Minsk were problem-free. Far from it, in fact. In the early 2000s, disagreements about the nature of political and economic integration came to the fore. The incoming Putin administration urged Lukashenka to open the Belarusian economy to Russian capital. This would provide lucrative investment opportunities for Kremlin-connected oligarchs and simultaneously entrench Russian influence in Belarus. Painfully aware that a takeover of strategic industries would deepen his dependency on Moscow, Lukashenka fought tooth and nail to prevent Kremlin-aligned firms from acquiring critical economic assets.³ This, coupled with personal animosities between Putin and Lukashenka, caused a great deal of friction. Diplomatic rows and energy price wars occurred on a regular basis, involving harsh undiplomatic rhetoric and exchanges of jibes at the highest levels. Lukashenka also refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the wake of Russia’s 2008 war in Georgia, much to Moscow’s displeasure (Korosteleva 2011; Marples 2008).

Crucially though, despite recurrent and often heated disagreements, Lukashenka maintained cooperative ties with Russia in military-security affairs. Russia, in turn, continued to provide Belarus with a significant discount on the price of natural gas and oil, cheap loans, and trade concessions to the overall tune of approximately USD2 billion per year (Deyermond 2004).

Moreover, following contested presidential elections in Belarus in 2006, Russia threw its weight behind Lukashenka and shielded his regime from international sanctions and internal unrest. A driver for this was, most likely, the Kremlin’s fear of a so-called demonstration effect. After all, the coming to power of a more democratic and liberal leadership in Belarus could inspire people in Russia to turn against Putin and his increasingly autocratic regime (Ambrosio 2009, 105–130).

The available evidence suggests, however, that geopolitical calculations on the part of the Kremlin were at least equally important. Leading members of the Belarusian opposition made no secret of their desire to reorient Belarus toward the West, advocating for what they called “a return to Europe” (Hundley 2005). From Russia’s vantage point, there was a significant risk that a change in government would result in a strategic realignment of Belarus. Moscow’s worries were amplified by the fact that the West, and especially the United States, launched several initiatives to provide aid to Belarusian opposition movements. Rightly or wrongly, strategic thinkers in Moscow viewed these initiatives as thinly veiled attempts by the West to rip Belarus away from Russia’s orbit of influence.⁴ As one analyst close to the Kremlin put it, “We have lost Ukraine [a reference to the December 2004 Orange Revolution] and if we now lose Belarus, in a certain period the North Atlantic alliance will be standing along the full length of our western borders. […] This is an issue of prestige and security” (RIA 2005).⁵ In line with the expectations of realist patron–client theory, Moscow thus pursued a reward binding strategy to maintain Lukashenka in power.

Of course, this brief discussion cannot do justice to the many twists and turns of Moscow’s interactions with Minsk during the 1990s and 2000s, but the main point is clear: both the Yeltsin and Putin administrations supported the Lukashenka regime notwithstanding intermittent crises and trade disputes. This shows just how important Belarus was to Russia’s strategic interests in the region. In short, Russia’s approach toward the leadership in Minsk can be pithily summed up by the maxim, “Lukashenka may be an S.O.B., but at least he is our S.O.B.”⁶

After Crimea: Belarus’s Drift and Russia’s Coercive Binding Policy

By the mid-2010s, Russia’s relations with Belarus soured considerably. The main reason is not difficult to discern. The annexation of Crimea came as a shock to the Lukashenka regime, which, as a result, took several steps to distance itself from Moscow. Lukashenka did not formally recognize the peninsula as Russian and turned Minsk into a mediation platform (Allison 2017, 532–533; Socor 2015; Vieira 2014). True, the Belarusian president had never been a completely pliant ally or vassal of Russia as previously discussed. After Crimea, however, he and his government began to demonstrate a hitherto unseen measure of independence in military and defense matters.

A case in point is the dispute surrounding a new Russian military base. Prior to the 2014 World Ice Hockey Championship in Belarus, Russia deployed a formation of four Su-27P fighter jets at an airfield near Baranovichi, officially on a request from Minsk to secure the country’s airspace during the event. Yet, after the championship was over, Russia showed no intention to withdraw the jets. Instead, it pushed for the establishment of a permanent airbase, a demand that Lukashenka fiercely rebuffed (Bohdan 2016; Hansen 2018, 233–235).

What is more, in 2015, the Lukashenka government suspended the practice of joint air patrols with Russia. A year later, in 2016, Belarus adopted a new military doctrine, which added the threat of “hybrid warfare” to the list of main external challenges. Russia was not mentioned directly, but most observers agree that it was a thinly veiled reference to Russia and its war in eastern Ukraine (Ambrosio 2022, 14–18). In the run-up to the 2017 iteration of Zapad, a joint Russian–Belarusian military exercise that is staged every four years, Lukashenka rebuked a last-minute demand by the Russian high command to deploy additional troops to Belarus. Instead, for the first time, he invited Western observers to monitor the parts of the exercise conducted on Belarusian territory (Howard 2019, 12–14).

In parallel, Lukashenka started taking steps to promote Belarusian culture, language, and identity – a policy that became known as “soft Belarusification.” At least in part, it was an attempt to counter Russian influence (Shraibman 2018). Lukashenka also refused to join Russian countersanctions on Western food and agricultural products. Quite the opposite: he proclaimed that Belarus should pursue an “independent” foreign policy and advocated for improving relations with the European Union (EU) and the United States. For their part, decision-makers in both Brussels and Washington were receptive to overtures from Minsk. The EU Commission decided to suspend sanctions against more than 170 Belarusian state officials, including Lukashenka himself, and initiated several economic and technical cooperation projects. There was also a notable improvement of Belarus’s relations with the United States. In August 2016, Minsk and Washington agreed to exchange nonresident defense attachés for the first time after a 12-year break. Subsequently, several US officials visited Minsk, including Deputy Secretary of State for Europe Wess Mitchell, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to name only the best-known figures (Coyer 2017; Preiherman 2017; RFE/RL 2019; Shotter 2017).⁷

As might be expected from realist patron–client theory, Russia watched these developments with unease. Analysts in the Russian Military Intelligence Service (GRU) and Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) expressed concern that Minsk may swing too far toward the West and slip from Russia’s fold (Sivitsky 2019). To prevent this from happening, the Kremlin adjusted its policy toward Belarus and shifted from reward binding to a coercive binding approach, which consisted of two prongs.

One was the employment of propaganda tools and subversive activities. Russian television and newspapers – which are widely consumed by the Belarusian population – embarked on a powerful information campaign highlighting the common civilizational, historical, and spiritual bonds between the two countries. Moreover, Russian state-sponsored organizations, such as the Russkiy Mir Foundation, the Gorchakov Foundation, and the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestsvo) became increasingly active in Belarus, seeking to foster pro-Russian sentiments among the population. Moscow also provided increased funding for local pro-Russian organizations such as the Belarusian Union of Afghan War Veterans, the Belarusian Federation of Russian Martial Arts, and paramilitary Cossack groups linked to the Russian Orthodox Church (Goble 2019; Kachurka 2014; Kłysiński and Żochowski 2016, 29–37).

A second prong of Moscow’s coercive binding approach was economic pressure. The Russian sanitary control agency, Rosselkhoznadozor, imposed trade restrictions on meat and dairy products from Belarusian producers, officially citing quality and health reasons. Russia also reduced its oil supplies to Belarus, and it postponed the payment of a tranche of a stabilization fund loan of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which is dominated by Moscow (Blank 2017; Coyer 2017; RFE/RL 2014). Yet the most important means of economic pressure was related to Russia’s so-called “tax maneuver.” In 2018, Moscow decided to abolish export duties on crude oil over the next six years, and in parallel to increase the mineral extraction tax. This complex scheme meant that Belarus would no longer receive a discount on export duties, and as a result, pay substantially higher prices for crude oil imported from Russia. According to estimates, this would cause losses for Belarus in the range of USD10 billion over the next years (Hedenskog 2020; Leukavets 2021, 94–95; Shraibman 2019).

In short, Russia made a concerted effort to pressure Minsk. At the same time, the Kremlin dangled carrots in front of Lukashenka. As a compensation for losses from the tax maneuver, Moscow offered a significant discount on the price of natural gas and preferential access to the Russian market – but only if Belarus agreed to “deep integration.” In other words, Russia made its continued support of Lukashenka and his regime conditional upon closer political alignment (Kłysiński, Menkiszak, and Strzelecki 2018; Preiherman 2020).

At first, this approach seemed to work. In 2019, a Russian–Belarusian intergovernmental working group was created, preparing a detailed framework of 31 roadmaps for closer political and economic integration. If implemented, this institutional arrangement would bind Belarus more tightly to Russia. Many observers expected that Lukashenka would sign the roadmap agreement at a much-anticipated meeting with Putin in early December 2019. This, however, did not happen. Lukashenka attended the meeting – but he refused to sign the agreement (Ioffe 2019). Instead, in the following weeks and months, he continued to make overtures to the European Union and the United States. The officially declared aim was to make Belarusian foreign policy “multi-winged,” in Lukashenka’s words (cited in Standish 2020). Put in terms of realist patron–client theory, the Belarusian leadership was embracing a hedging strategy. We should consequently expect to see that Russia resorted to an even more coercive policy. This is exactly what we observe.

Russia responded to Lukashenka’s geopolitical disloyalty by stepping up the pressure in several ways. Most importantly, on January 1, 2020, Russia’s major oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil halted the supply of crude oil delivered to Belarus (TASS 2020a). This had a detrimental effect on the Belarusian economy and undermined the basis on which Lukashenka maintained himself in power. After all, the income from the export of refined oil products not only allowed Lukashenka and his coterie to line their pockets, it also provided huge rents that were distributed domestically. This was crucial, as it helped to grease the wheels of patronage networks supporting the regime (for background, see Balmaceda 2014). In other words, Moscow’s decision to halt oil supplies weakened the politico-economic foundation of Lukashenka’s rule.

Moreover, in mid-March 2020, Russia closed for more than six weeks its border with Belarus, officially due to the “epidemiological situation” related to the COVID-19 outbreak. But the move was likely influenced at least in part by political considerations as well, as it came without any advance warning or consultation with the Belarusian authorities. This was a highly unusual move, which further aggravated Belarus’s already dire economic situation (Shraibman 2020; TASS 2020b). Concomitantly, Russia launched a media blitz against Lukashenka. Russian news outlets and social media platforms (which are widely used in Belarus) subjected Lukashenka to a barrage of negative coverage. Of note, these news outlets and social media platforms were in many cases funded by pro-Kremlin oligarchs such as Konstantin Malofeev, Alexander Mamut, and Yury Kovalchuk. Given Russia’s centralized political structures, it beggars belief to suppose that such an orchestrated media campaign could have taken place without active support of the Kremlin (ISANS 2019; Kevere 2020; Sivitsky 2020).

In short, Russia employed a range of tools to punish the Lukashenka leadership for its rapprochement, however tentative, with the West. This is congruent with the expectations of realist patron–client theory. Some analysts have put forth an alternative explanation: Putin pushed for deeper political integration with Belarus to create a new political entity. This, so the argument goes, would enable Putin to remain in power after 2024 when his second consecutive term (his fourth overall) as Russian president expired (see, e.g., Ferris 2019; ISANS 2019, 1).

With the benefit of hindsight, this explanation is unpersuasive. The amendments to the Russian constitution in 2020 showed that Putin had found another, more convenient way to stay in power. Yet, even after the constitutional basis had been provided for Putin to stand for two further terms, Moscow continued to push for closer integration with Belarus. It is difficult to see what domestic political benefits the Putin regime could derive from this. According to polls by the Levada Center (2020), Belarus was – and still is –an issue of only secondary importance for the Russian public. Less than 20 percent support unification with Belarus, and about the same number favor deepened integration (see also Kirillova 2020; Shraibman 2021a). Thus, a more cogent and straightforward explanation is that the Kremlin wanted to bring Belarus firmly back into Russia’s orbit of influence for both status-related and geopolitical reasons.

Russia’s Belarus Policy and the 2020 Presidential Elections

In the run-up to the Belarusian presidential elections in August 2020, Lukashenka bolstered his image as a guarantor of the country’s sovereignty and statehood against Russian intrusions. A number of candidates with a pro-Russian bent, most prominently Viktar Babaryka, the former chief executive of Belgazprombank (a subsidiary of Gazprombank), were imprisoned (BBC 2020a). Moreover, less than two weeks before the elections, Belarusian law enforcement agencies detained 33 mercenaries of the Russian military company Wagner Group in a hotel at the outskirts of Minsk. According to Belarusian state officials, the mercenaries wanted to “destabilize the situation” ahead of the elections. This claim, however, is highly contested. Many observers suspected that the Wagner Group operatives were on their way to a conflict theater in Africa or Latin America (Felgenhauer 2020; Mackinnon 2020). More recently, the investigative news outlet Bellingcat (2021) has published a detailed report, according to which the mercenaries (all of whom had fought in the Donbas) were lured to Minsk as part of a failed sting operation conducted by Ukrainian intelligence agencies. Whatever the case, what is clear is that Lukashenka tried to capitalize on the incident. Footage of the arrested mercenaries was broadcasted nonstop on state television in an effort to boost Lukashenka’s nationalist credentials.

Yet, after the election on August 9, the political constellation changed abruptly. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Minsk and other Belarusian cities protesting against the apparently fraudulent outcome and calling for an end to the Lukashenka regime. The protests were met with violent repression by security forces, leaving at least five demonstrators dead and hundreds injured (OHCHR 2023). Despite, or perhaps because of, this brute show of force, the protests grew by the day and touched off nationwide strikes. To make matters worse (from Lukashenka’s perspective), many Western governments came out in support of the protesters, refused to recognize Lukashenka’s reelection as legitimate, and re-imposed economic and political sanctions. In this dire situation, Lukashenka turned to Moscow for help.

Moscow, however, was hesitant to throw its weight behind Lukashenka. In fact, several Russian politicians took a surprisingly negative tone, talked of vote-rigging, and blamed Lukashenka for the crisis. This group of politicians included top-level officials like Konstantin Zatulin, deputy chairman of the Russian Duma State Committee on Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs; Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs; Aleksei Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs; and Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gudkov 2020, 14; Schmies and Forbig 2020). What is more, Kremlin-controlled news agencies such as Interfax, TASS, and RIA Novosti reported extensively about the demonstrations, criticizing Lukashenka for his repressive tactics (Socor 2020). Given the centralization of political and media structures in Russia, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which this could have happened without the approval, if not active encouragement, of the Kremlin.

It was only about two weeks later that the Kremlin – and with it the Russian mass media – changed course. Russia deployed a team of FSB agents to Belarus to protect Lukashenka and the inner circle of his regime (Rázc 2020). Moreover, on August 27, Putin announced in a televised interview that Russia had formed a special reserve contingent of the Russian National Guard at Lukashenka’s request. This “law enforcement reserve” would be sent into Belarus, said Putin, if the situation there “got out of control” (BBC 2020b; see also Galeotti 2020a). In addition, Russia’s state-owned media group MIA Rossiia Segodnia dispatched dozens of reporters and technical advisers to Minsk to replace some of the 300 employees of the Belarusian state media who had gone on strike in protest against Lukashenka (Balmforth and Zhegulev 2020). Russia also bolstered the Belarusian leadership through loans and financial assistance. Most significantly, on September 14, President Putin met personally with Lukashenka in the Black Sea resort of Sochi and promised that Russia would provide Belarus with USD1.5 billion of much-needed credits (Rázc 2020; TASS 2020c). These various measures demonstrate a remarkable policy shift on part of the Kremlin, from subversive to supportive. How can one explain this?

Many observers have suggested that the Kremlin’s post-election support for Lukashenka was driven by some sort of autocratic solidarity, with Putin fearing the demonstration effect of a successful popular uprising in Belarus (Dickinson 2020; Gould-Davies 2020; Leukavets 2021, 98; Whitmore 2021a). There is, most likely, an element of truth in it; all else being equal, the survival of other autocracies in the post-Soviet space contributes to legitimizing Putin’s illiberal rule at home. What is more, during the summer of 2020, several major rallies took place in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, following the arrest of a popular regional governor. The protesters expressed signs of solidarity with the anti-Lukashenka movement in Belarus (Makarychev 2021, Pinkham 2020). Seen in this light, much speaks for the thesis that Russia backed Lukashenka because of Putin’s fears for the survival of his own regime.

On reflection, however, the importance of regime-security considerations should not be overstated. To begin with, the protests in Khabarovsk were far away from Moscow and lacked a clear leadership and cohesive organization, which throws doubt on the degree of threat to the regime posed by these demonstrations. Indeed, Kremlin officials displayed little concern about the protests. Furthermore, by any objective standard, the risk of an actual “democratic spillover” from Belarus into Russia was low. After all, the Kremlin was (and still is) in control of most of the Russian media space, and it has built up a large coercive apparatus. As a result, over the course of the last decade, many of the most vocal liberal-democratic critics of the Kremlin have been either discredited, forced into exile, imprisoned, or died under mysterious circumstances. Putin’s most serious domestic critics are today neo-communists and pan-Slavic nationalists who are deeply anti-liberal and anti-democratic in their orientation (Kolstø and Blakkisrud 2016). In addition, it is worth recalling that Moscow deliberately and purposefully weakened the Lukashenka regime in the run-up to the elections. The popular uprising in Belarus was at least partially facilitated by Russian economic pressure and propaganda campaigns, as described in the previous section. All of this suggests that fears of a “democratic spillover” were not the primary driving force guiding Moscow’s policy toward Minsk.

The available evidence indicates that power-political considerations were of far greater significance. The new generation of Belarusian opposition leaders – headed by Svetlana Tikhanouskaya and the so-called Coordination Council – evidently were very much aware of Moscow’s geopolitical concerns and aspirations, stressing repeatedly that the mass protests were not anti-Russian or pro-Western (Kazharski and Makarychev 2021, 2). Lukashenka, for his part, tried to play on Russian fears and warned that NATO was massing troops on Belarus’s western border. Whether decision-makers in Moscow actually believed Lukashenka’s trumped-up claims is difficult to say. What is clear, though, is that there was a latent fear among Kremlin officials that a sudden downfall of Lukashenka’s regime might lead to instability, which, in turn, could be exploited by “outside” powers. For example, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov noted that the fraudulent elections “were not ideal,” but he also warned of foreign attempts to take advantage of the situation to gain influence, which, he said, were “about geopolitics, a fight for the post-Soviet space” (cited in Galeotti 2020b; see also Lukyanov 2021).⁸

In addition, and arguably even more important, the weakness of the Lukashenka regime provided Moscow with a window of opportunity to pull Belarus back into a closer Russian embrace. Indeed, the investigative news portal “Insider” (2020) has published a series of leaked documents from the Kremlin administration that have come to be known as the “Chernov dossier.”⁹ The documents outline a plan to take advantage of Lukashenka’s weakened domestic position. This may explain why the Kremlin decided to wait a few weeks before backing Lukashenka and his regime. Presumably, the rationale was to let the crisis fester and bring Lukashenka into a desperate situation in which he felt compelled to give in to Moscow’s demands. The observable behavior supports this thesis.

In early September 2020, ahead of a visit by Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin and a delegation from Moscow, Lukashenka announced the dismissal of several of his top security chiefs, including the heads of the Belarusian KGB, Security Council, and State Control Committee. They were replaced by figures with closer ties to the Russian intelligence and security services. As several seasoned observers have pointed out, there are indications that these personnel changes were done under behind-the-scenes pressure from Moscow (Boulègue 2020, 9; Metzel 2020; Tétrault-Farber 2020).

Moscow also pushed Minsk to resume negotiations about the abovementioned union-state project. After numerous high-level meetings, Putin and Lukashenka announced in early November 2021 that all chapters of the union-state treaty now had been finalized and signed – something that Lukashenka had fought off for many years. Lukashenka also suspended Belarus’s membership in the EU’s Eastern Partnership program; he proposed to remove the neutrality clause in the Belarusian constitution; and he officially recognized Crimea as part of the Russian Federation (Shraibman 2021b).

What is more, Russia started to expand its sway over Belarus in military affairs. In March 2021, the Russian and Belarusian defense ministers signed for the first time a Strategic Partnership Program, which entailed the establishment of three joint military training centers (Whitmore 2021b). These training centers are located in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod (ground training center) and Kaliningrad (naval training center) regions, and in Belarus’s Grodno region (air-force and air-defense training center). This arrangement is likely to not only increase the interoperability of the two states’ armed forces but also enhance Russian influence over the Belarusian officer corps. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the air-force and air-defense training center in Grodno (near the Belarusian border with Poland and Lithuania) entails a rotational presence of four to eight Russian Su-30 fighter jets along with crews, support personnel, and an unknown number of military advisers (Sivitsky 2021; TASS 2021). That amounts in effect to a quasi-permanent Russian airbase in Belarus. To top it off, in November 2021, the leaderships in Moscow and Minsk officially approved a joint Russia–Belarus Union State Military Doctrine (Voennaia Doktrina Soiuznogo Gosudarstva). As a result, Belarus was turning into “a de facto extension of Russia’s western military district,” as one observer presciently put it (Whitmore 2021c).

In sum, the profound political crisis that erupted in Belarus following the 2020 presidential elections presented both a challenge and an opportunity for the Kremlin. The challenge was to prevent the coming to power of a more democratic, pro-Western government in Minsk. The opportunity lay in taking advantage of Lukashenka’s weakened position to draw Belarus more firmly into Russia’s sphere of influence. Accordingly, Russia made the provision of economic, diplomatic, and security assistance to Lukashenka contingent on closer politico-military cooperation. This is congruent with the expectations of realist patron–client theory, according to which great-power patrons will take advantage of – and sometimes even facilitate – domestic political crises in recalcitrant client states to reassert influence over them.

Conclusions and Implications

Existing studies about Russia’s Belarus policy tend to focus on domestic factors. By contrast, its geopolitical drivers – and implications – have received less attention. This article has sought to rectify this imbalance. To that end, it presented a realist patron–client theory that explicitly incorporates the dimension of power politics to explain why and how great-power patrons seek to exert influence over local client states. As the previous sections have shown, this approach offers substantial leverage in accounting for the overall course and conduct of Russia’s Belarus policy.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Moscow applied a reward binding policy to keep Belarus within its geopolitical orbit – with some success. Despite recurrent and often vocal disagreements, Lukashenka maintained close military ties with Russia. This changed around 2014. Following Russia’s takeover of Crimea, Lukashenka displayed an increasingly independent-minded stance in foreign and defense affairs. In response, Moscow shifted toward to a coercive binding policy, which included various forms of economic pressure and propaganda campaigns against Lukashenka. In the wake of the Belarusian political crisis in 2020, the Kremlin offered its support for the ailing regime in Minsk – but only if Lukashenka adjusted his position and brought Belarus back into Moscow’s orbit. In doing so, Russia prevented the coming to power of a more pro-Western government, while at the same time reasserting its politico-strategic influence over Belarus.

This became patently clear in February 2022 when Russia was able to use Belarusian territory as a launching pad for its attack on Ukraine. Given the geographical circumstances, it would have been next to impossible for Russia to make a dash for Kyiv without access to the Belarusian road and railway network. Minsk also permitted Russia to use the Belarusian airspace and military infrastructure for launching air, missile, and drone strikes. In early July 2022, it was reported that Belarus had given Russian forces full control over the Pribytki (Zyabrovka) airfield near Gomel (Stone and Hojnacki 2022). In October 2022, Lukashenka announced the formation of a new joint regional grouping of Russian and Belarusian forces. Shortly afterward, roughly 9,000 Russian soldiers arrived in Belarus, which prompted some observers to conclude that Moscow was preparing another offensive in northern Ukraine. At the time of writing (January 2023), this appears unlikely but not impossible.

On the one hand, the conditions for an attack on Kyiv are much worse than during the first phase of the war. The Ukrainian forces have fortified and mined the border region, blown up dams and bridges, and accumulated significant combat power in and around Kyiv. Moreover, the number of Russian troops deployed to Belarus is rather small, and many of them appear to be recently mobilized reservists without any heavy equipment or, for that matter, battlefield experience. Thus, the most likely purpose of their deployment is to bind Ukrainian forces in the north as well as to train these troops at some of the Belarusian military facilities. After all, Russia is running short of instructors as many of them are on the frontlines in Ukraine or have died in the war (Douglas 2022; Rainsford 2022; Rudnik 2022).

It is also worth pointing out that the Belarusian armed forces, on their own, have not much to offer in terms of offensive combat capability. They have been neglected for more than two decades, are equipped largely with Soviet-legacy weapons, and field no more than 45,000 soldiers. The focus of Lukashenka and his regime has been on propping up internal security agencies rather than the regular military (Muzyka 2021).

That said, the Russian leadership still might find it useful to open another front in northern Ukraine in order to distract and disperse the Ukrainian forces. This creates a dilemma for Lukashenka. Sending Belarusian troops to fight in Ukraine will result in even stronger Western sanctions, and at least equally important, such a move stands to undermine the country’s tenuous stability. A poll from August 2022 found that less than 10 percent of Belarusians support the deployment of their own forces to fight in Ukraine (Glod 2022; Mathers 2022; Stone and Hojnacki 2022). Lukashenka, who has proven to be an adept negotiator with the Kremlin in the past, will therefore do his best to dodge or stall any Russian request to do so. Lukashenka’s room for maneuver is limited, however, as the survival of his regime is dependent on Russian support. Belarus, in effect, has turned into a full-blown client state. If push comes to shove, Minsk will comply with demands from Moscow. This means that Russia can use Belarus as a power-projection platform for deploying military units into northern Ukraine or, for that matter, for conducting hybrid activities on the Belarusian–NATO border. Thus, even after the war in Ukraine ends, the political subordination of Belarus by Russia will have far-reaching strategic implications for the European security landscape.

The findings of this study also carry broader implications for the field of international relations. Exploring great power–small power relations is of particular importance as we are moving toward a world that is increasingly defined by regionalization and great power competition (Acharya 2018; Götz 2021b; Mearsheimer 2019). As noted above, a growing number of studies use patron–client relations as a lens to explore various phenomena in international politics. But these studies have mainly focused on the client states’ preferences and behavior. This article, by contrast, has developed a theoretical model seeking to account for the strategies and interests of patron states.

Of course, the single-case study presented here does not offer a solid basis for far-reaching conclusions about the generalizability of realist patron–client theory. Additional work is needed to see whether and to what extent it can shed light on a broader range of cases – for example, Russia’s policies toward Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. The latter is an especially interesting case, as the Russian intervention in Kazakhstan in January 2022 did not result in stronger patron–client bonds – in fact, the pattern over the past year has been just the opposite. Kazakhstan seems to be distancing itself from Russia. In other words, scholars should study both successful and unsuccessful cases from the perspective of the great-power patron; otherwise, one runs the risk of falling prey to selection bias and sampling error.

In extension, future research should examine whether the causal logic of realist patron–client theory can contribute to explaining the policies of other major powers such as China and the United States. In doing so, one would learn more about the theory’s external validity and scope conditions. For instance, one might hypothesize that powerful states confronting a highly restrictive strategic environment – such as contemporary Russia – are more concerned about client defection than states facing a relatively permissive external environment where risks to national security and status are more distant.¹⁰ Future studies may also want to investigate more thoroughly how the interplay of national and regime security affects the preferences, strategies, and behavior of patron states. Beyond shedding new light on Russia’s Belarus policy, it is hoped, therefore, that this study can serve as a stepping stone for gaining a more comprehensive understanding of great power–small power relations in world politics.

Acknowledgments

For valuable comments and suggestions, the author would like to thank Peter Viggo Jakobsen, Troels Burchall Henningsen, and Jørgen Staun, as well as two anonymous reviewers and the editors of Problems of Post-Communism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A note for the theoretically minded reader: Murray’s approach falls well within the constructivist school of thought, but her argument about spheres of influence is compatible with the realist perspective on world politics. For a discussion of Murray’s work, see Götz (2021a, 236–239).

2. For a highly interesting study using the concept of ontological security to examine Russia’s Belarus policy, see Kazharski and Kubová (2021).

3. Following years of pressure, Lukashenka transferred ownership of the Belarusian gas pipeline and transportation company, Beltransgaz, to Gazprom in November 2011. Overall, however, Lukashenka managed to preserve his hold on the commanding heights of the economy and prevent Russian investors from taking over valuable Belarusian companies (Ioffe 2013).

4. For an insightful analysis of Russia’s threat assessments of Western democracy-promotion campaigns in the post-Soviet region, see German (2020).

5. For the quote and background, see Ambrosio (2009, 130).

6. The maxim is paraphrasing a well-known comment attributed to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who reportedly used this expression to explain and justify why the United States supported the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza.

7. The West’s rapprochement with the Lukashenka regime took place although little had changed in Belarus in terms of liberalization and democratization. This suggests that Washington and Brussels were pursuing a so-called wedge strategy aimed at weakening Belarus’s military-strategic alignment with Russia. On wedge strategies, see Crawford (2011).

8. The origins and driving factors of the upheaval in Belarus were clearly domestic in nature, including the mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis, economic problems, and “Lukashenka fatigue” among large parts of the Belarusian population (Bedford 2021; Dunay and Herd 2020). That said, there are numerous historical examples of great powers seeking to exploit indigenous unrest for power political purposes.

9. The leaked documents are from the Russian president’s Department for Inter-Regional and Cultural Contacts with Foreign Countries, which is involved in political operations within the post-Soviet space. The department was headed until March 2021 by a Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) general by the name of Vladimir Chernov; hence the label Chernov Dossier. According to the documents, Moscow’s plan was to create a political order in Belarus with multiple decision-making centers, which would provide avenues for the Kremlin to build up pro-Russian political lobbies and parties. For more on this, see Davidzon (2021).

10. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this point, as well as for drawing my attention to the case of Russia’s Kazakhstan policy mentioned in the foregoing paragraph.