Description: NEW DIPLOMACY addresses policy challenges in the EU, post-Soviet space, and the Middle East. It focuses on security policy, media and diplomacy.
"This uncompromising stance is perhaps most immediately evident in Putin’s robust defence of Lukashenka’s recent act of air piracy," writes Piekło. Lukashenka's decision to force down an EU airliner passing through Belarusian airspace in order to detain a dissident Belarusian journalist, Raman Pratasevich, "sparked international outrage and has provoked a new wave of sanctions. Undeterred, Putin has publicly backed Lukashenka’s actions and even went so far as to temporarily block a number of EU airlines fro
One scenario, argues Piekło, was that "Putin would agree to the removal of Lukashenka, but would seek to install a Kremlin-friendly replacement from within the ranks of the Belarusian opposition. This manoeuvre would keep Minsk firmly in the Russian orbit, while also meeting Western demands for the normalisation of the situation in Belarus, including the release of political prisoners and the scheduling of fresh presidential elections."
In the final analysis, "Putin has likely decided that removing Lukashenka is simply too risky," argues Piekło. "The Russian ruler remains haunted by the Soviet collapse and fears a repeat of the pro-democracy uprisings that swept Central Europe at the end of the 1980s and initiated the fall of the USSR. This explains Putin’s 2014 decision to invade Ukraine following the country’s Euromaidan Revolution, and also forms the basis of his opposition to the ongoing anti-regime protests in Belarus."