From Russia with Love

The economy was one reason why Lukashenka chose to pursue close integration with his powerful Eastern neighbor. Another was the readiness of Russia’s political and economic elites to back the Belarusian leader by any means necessary despite a high cost to Russia and Lukashenka’s poor reputation in the West. Lukashenka has been widely perceived in Moscow as its only loyal ally in the former USSR. Throughout the last decade, Lukashenka has masterfully extracted enormous political and economic benefits that fortify his rule and minimize the consequences of the international isolation imposed on Belarus after the establishment of authoritarianism.

There was a ready audience in Russia to accept Lukashenka as a partner and ally even when the political and economic divergence between the two countries seemed immense. The break-up of the USSR caused a profound trauma to Russian society and its elites, which had to redefine the political and civilizational identity of a country facing the irreversible weakening of a former superpower. Political instability and economic upheaval nurtured ultranationalist and communist forces in the Russian political arena; these forces scored victories in the 1993 and 1995 parliamentary elections. The restoration of Russia’s political and military dominance over the republics of the former USSR returned as a prominent topic in the mainstream political discourse. Anti-Western sentiment increased after the “romantic” period in Russia’s relations with the West was cut short by the incursion into Chechnya and the enlargement of NATO. The country’s elites and general public grew sympathetic to the old-new geopolitical concepts of pan-Slavism, Eurasianism, and the counter-alliance of Russia and Asian powers against expanding Western influence. And while re-integration of former Soviet states proved to be impossible, the availability of Belarus for a quick and tangible political, economic, and military union offered the elites a chance to prove the feasibility of the restorationist project to the domestic audience.

Lukashenka quickly picked up on these sentiments. By concluding several integration agreements with Russia (the last important one, signed in December 1999, even provided for the establishment of a “Union State”), he created an illusion among the Russian public and elites that Belarus would soon join Russia. This illusion was never supported inside Belarus, where Lukashenka presented himself as a guarantor of sovereignty and only spoke about an “equal union” with the powerful neighbor. By playing upon Russian anti-Western and communist rhetoric, Lukashenka succeeded in transforming himself into a symbol of hope for Russia’s recovery of its lost greatness. For several years in the late 1990s, Lukashenka was even considered a possible new leader of Russia—an ambition that arguably drove the entire integration process.

This alleged ambition strained relations between Russia and Belarus at some points. But in spite of occasional brawls over the specifics of the integration project, the eviction of Russian journalists from Belarus, and the failure to pay back debts, both the Yeltsin and Putin administrations backed Lukashenka when it mattered most. Thus the Kremlin fully endorsed the results of the 1996 and 2004 referenda that provided Lukashenka with unlimited authority and refuted Western attempts to criticize him for election fraud or the persecution of political opponents. The purely political nature of Russia’s backing is underlined by the fact that, in spite of Russia’s economic concessions, Russian capital has failed to establish a meaningful presence in Belarus because the country’s economic assets are off-limits to any investors.

The vast economic and political support that helped Lukashenka to eliminate meaningful domestic opposition brought forth a paradox: once Russia helped Lukashenka stabilize his power, it lost its ability to influence him. This became obvious with the accession in 2000 of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose initial relations with Lukashenka were more tenuous. Putin’s own power-grabbing in the Kremlin quieted the whispers about Lukashenka’s chances for the Russian throne. At one moment, the integration process even became dangerous for Lukashenka, as Putin suggested in 2002 that Belarus should simply join Russia as a province, forcing the Belarusian leader to re-establish himself as a staunch defender of his country’s independence. Moreover, Putin, who was initially willing to establish closer relations with the United States and the European Union, was less willing to subsidize Belarus as an “outpost” against Western influence. As a result, Lukashenka faced intense pressure from 2002 to 2003 to open up his economy for Russian capital, was forced to pay higher energy bills, and was terrorized by rumors that the Kremlin would chose to dump him and block his efforts to remove terms limits for presidency.

But this pressure on Lukashenka proved to be ineffectual and short-lived. He successfully cleansed the political field to prevent any efficient opposition, including that supported by Moscow. Opportunities for economic pressure proved to be limited once Russia faced the possibility of disrupting energy supplies for European consumers by turning off gas for Belarus. Once applied, economic pressure only helped Lukashenka to rally public support against the plots of Russian oligarchs to take over Belarus. In the end, Russia’s own retreat to authoritarianism left the Kremlin with little cause to be wary of an authoritarian neighbor. Moreover, once the tide of electoral revolutions in the former Soviet republics put the Kremlin on the defensive against the wave of democratization that threatened to undermine Russia’s influence in the “near abroad,” Lukashenka proved to be a valuable link in the new anti-revolutionary alliance of former Soviet dictators that is rapidly coalescing around Moscow. There are no longer second thoughts in the Kremlin about the need to support Lukashenka.

Pre-emption

The final factor ensuring the long-term stability of Lukashenka’s regime is his ability to foresee and eliminate potential challenges to his authority upon their inception. This ability has become particularly remarkable given the wave of democratic electoral revolutions throughout the former Soviet Union over the past three years. The downfall of “soft” autocratic regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan demonstrated one of the greatest paradoxes of post-communist political development in the former USSR. Incumbents throughout the region have faked democracy to protect their power while creating a semblance of a competitive electoral process. Soft authoritarians never meant to abandon power, but they were willing to practice somewhat meaningful elections, allow an institutionalized political opposition, and tolerate independent civil society and some free press in order to gain legitimacy as democratically elected leaders.