On Wednesday, November 18, CERES and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland hosted “Solidarity with Belarus”, a panel of diplomatic and intellectual experts on the causes, effects, developments, and international responses to the popular demonstrations in Belarus. The panelists highlighted the relatively limited involvement of Western actors and Russia’s complex geostrategic considerations as critical elements for explaining the attritional status quo from August to November, as well as determining ways to turn the tide in the opposition’s favor. Speakers of the distinguished panel include former U.S. Ambassador to Belarus, Kenneth Yalowitz, former Belarusian Ambassador to France and a member of the presidium of the Coordination Council, Pavel Latushka, and the Head of the Russian Department at the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW), Marek Menkiszak.
The panel noted that the situation on the ground has severely escalated in the scope of brutality, with detentions numbering up to 30,000 Belarusians and torture widespread. Although the demonstrators regularly have tens of thousands regularly protesting Belarusian “President” Lukashenko’s alleged election tampering and mass state violence, loyalty of the security class (siloviki) and the asymmetric response of great powers have limited the opposition’s ability to achieve short-term objectives. Panelists underscored that until recently, Euro-American support for the Tikhanovskaya-backed Coordination Council has been largely rhetorical, while Russia has been cautiously decisive in providing Lukashenko economic and media assistance, with the offer of security aid looming large. The experts pointed out a number of ways the European Union and the US could help change this reality, from facilitating dialogue between the EU, the Belarusian factions, and Russia on the opposition’s demands to sanctions on Lukashenko’s domestic and Russian allies. Both the involvement of and pressure on Russia are intended with consideration of Russia’s geopolitical calculus, which the panel observed seeks to force a weakened Lukashenko to accept integration with Moscow, maintain firm control over a client state in its sphere of influence, and keep the protests from adopting the anti-Russian elements of the Maidan crisis in 2014. Critically, there is room for the Coordination Council to assuage Moscow’s concerns as effectively as Lukashenko, thus they see opportunity to leverage them in seeking international support for their own objectives to be satisfied. These issues and others are more thoroughly discussed in our recording of the event here.