Alexander Lukashenko’s risky balancing act with Russia and Ukraine

The authoritarian leader of Belarus has tied his survival to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that’s turned his country of 9 million into a crucial Kremlin ally in the growing confrontation with Ukraine.

Russia has about 30,000 troops in Belarus, where they’re holding joint military exercises with Belarusian forces that are scheduled to end on Sunday. Those soldiers are also only about 100 kilometers north of Kyiv.

On Friday, Alexander Lukashenko was in Moscow to meet with Putin, and Lukashenko insisted he doesn’t want war. The West “is scaring the whole world saying that we are getting ready to attack, surround, and destroy Ukraine. But we have never had any such plans,” he told reporters.

Putin called intelligence reports that Russia is poised to attack Ukraine “fake news.”

But Lukashenko did have a word of warning.

“We do not want war, but if someone does, the response will be totally asymmetric. I think everyone in the world understands that,” he said.

Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, and for much of his rule, he tried to perform a complicated political dance — remaining a close ally of Russia while also keeping some level of contact with the West. But after the 2020 fraudulent presidential election and subsequent violent crackdown by the authorities, Lukashenko has no more wiggle room — he belongs to Putin.

Western nations imposed trade and financial sanctions, while Putin has repeatedly promised political and economic support to the regime in Minsk. In return, Belarus is open to the Russian military.

A day ahead of his trip to the Kremlin, Lukashenko reviewed Russian and Belarusian forces conducting exercises and said the two countries would decide together whether to recognize the separatist Russian-backed “republics” in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

“We will provide any support to Russia, both military and, if necessary, economic support. We will share the last piece of bread with them and with people who suffer in Donbas,” he said.

“What Kyiv needs to do is to sit down at the negotiating table with Donbas representatives and agree on political, military, economic and humanitarian measures to end this conflict,” Putin said after the talks with Lukashenko. “The sooner this happens, the better.”

Lukashenko also made clear that earlier assurances that Russian troops will head home as soon as the exercises are done may not happen. “This is our decision: to withdraw the troops tomorrow or in a month. They will be here as long as necessary.”

In recent days, Ukraine’s military leadership has tried to open direct channels of communication with Minsk to reduce tensions near the border.

“If intelligence detects movements of long-range weapons or, say, the construction of a pontoon near our border, we can demand answers [from the Belarusians],” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Ukrainian MPs on Friday.

Reznikov added that Russia has deployed around 129,000 ground troops near Ukraine’s borders. “We do not underestimate the threat in any way, but we still estimate that the probability of large-scale escalation is low,” he said.

Lukashenko’s tight embrace of Putin is being condemned by the Belarusian opposition.

“Lukashenka is becoming a Kremlin’s vassal. He can’t make his own policy anymore,” tweeted Franak Viačorka, a senior adviser to exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.