The fate of Belarus is in the hands of President Putin

When the mob turns against you anywhere north or east of the Danube, it’s usually a good idea to get out while you can.

My advice to President Alexander Lukashenko, the embattled leader of Belarus, in power for the last 26 years, would be to pack his bags and head for … well, of course, that’s the problem. Who would have him? Not even Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian strongman, would wish to be seen harbouring Europe’s last Soviet-style dictator. Lukashenko may have to go cap-in-hand to Moscow, or else further east, most obviously to Kazakhstan, if he wants somewhere reasonably safe in which to pass his enforced retirement.

But, of course, even when the chips are down and the end is in sight, there are still times when aggression can seem the better part of valour. President Lukashenko looks set to stand and fight, with consequences that bring to mind the final days of Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu, whose bullet-ridden body, alongside that of his crazed wife Elena, was presented to western journalists – this one included – on Christmas Day, 1989.

In the years that followed, Romania was in trauma. Its politics remained confused and frequently brutal; more than a million of its people moved away. Only now, 30 years on, can it reasonably be described as a “normal” society.

For Belarus, the third possibility – not to be discounted – is that Vladimir Putin, eschewing the ever-present option to invade, will answer Lukashenko’s plea for assistance and make clear to the people of Belarus that reform, not revolution, is the answer to a nation’s prayer. Tanks on the border and a televised address by the Russian leader backing “free and fair” elections, with a Manchurian candidate on the ballot, might yet persuade protesters to give the regime one last chance to do the right thing.

Lots to play for, then. In the event that the third course of action, or some version of it, is endorsed by both sides, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition leader officially defeated in this month’s presidential election, would return from her ten-day exile in neighbouring Lithuania to again take on Lukashenko womano a mano.

Tikhanovskaya has a lot to complain about. Aged 37, she is the wife of the longstanding human rights activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski, whose plan to contest the general election came to grief when he was arrested by the secret police on May 29. She ran in her husband’s place and claimed, plausibly, to have won between 60 and 70 per cent of the popular vote. It was at this point that the President declared himself the victor, by a landslide, forcing Tikhanovskaya to flee to Vilnius in neighbouring Lithuainia, even as hundreds of thousands of her supporters took to the streets.

It is not clear whether or not Tikhanovskaya would immediately give way to her husband in the event that she won a re-run of this month’s election, but it is hard to believe that he would not at least be the power behind the throne. The other possibility is that a new leader will emerge from within the protest movement – someone currently unknown in the West but seen by the people as one of them.

Lukashenko, meanwhile, remains snarling and defiant – a posture that could ensure him a further year or so’s occupation of the presidential palace but which, just as likely, will be seen as misplaced pride before his fall. A one-time Red Army commissar, then the manager of a collective farm, he opposed the break-up of the Soviet Union but later embraced the opportunity it provided for him to become the Stalin of Minsk.

Belarus, with its scatted population of some ten million, a third of them living in the capital district, has under his rule fallen behind its western neighbours, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, all three of which are now members of the European Union. Arguably, it has fared better than Ukraine, to the south, the loss of which has never been accepted by Putin’s Russia. But it has at least managed to outface the Russian leader, who, up until now, has not succumbed to the irredentist temptation to send in the troops.

Lukashenko affects to despise the EU and, in spite of flirting with the US, has been prevented from joining Nato by his country’s enforced membership of the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States. As long as the economy held up, he had little difficulty suppressing political and social unrest. The problem today is that a once-thriving manufacturing sector has withered on the vine since the 1990s, while the country’s dependence on Moscow for oil and gas has slowly drained the Treasury.

Throughout all this, the regime has been marked by widespread and persistent corruption. The state owns much of the country’s productive capacity, and Lukashenko is the state. The Army is largely moribund, but the police forces are active in suppressing dissent. In the last few weeks alone, some 7,500 demonstrators have been arrested and are awaiting trial. Thousands more have languished in jail for decades.

The media, other than state TV, has been effectively shut down, obliging opposition leaders to present their case either directly on the streets or via social media. In support, the unions have organised nationwide strikes, backed by students and workers. It is a pattern that has been seen again and again in post-Soviet Europe, but with a range of outcomes.

From an EU perspective, the crisis could not have come at a worse time. European governments are obsessed with Covid-19 and the resulting economic recession. Germany’s Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron of France might typically aspire to be seen as power-brokers in Minsk, ushering in a new democratic leadership that in time would apply to join the Brussels club. The two leaders are due to meet this Thursday at the French president’s island retreat, the Fort de Brégançon.

But such is the pressure on their time – on everybody’s time – that little is expected beyond mere words. It is not impossible that Macron will stage another dash to the east in the style of his recent high-profile trip to Beirut. It could even be that Merkel might contact Putin with a view to organising a concerted push for an orderly resolution.

But nothing can be taken for granted anymore. The Kremlin has problems enough of its own, though it may yet step in in one form or another as the broker of last resort. In Washington, the imminence of the presidential election, allied to the demands of the Covid emergency and a near-certain economic recession, make US intervention highly unlikely.

As President Trump might say, the situation in Belarus is what it is. What happens next depends on the strength of will of the participants. The protesters insist they will not give up the fight until Lukashenko is gone. The President, for his part, has said that the only way he will surrender his post will be when he is dead. We have been here before and the only certainty is that it never ends well.