Belarusian Regime Perceptions of Russian Aggression in Ukraine

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how Belarusian officials reacted to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine after its outbreak in February 2022 to March 2023. Although the Belarusian president initially tried to maintain friendly relations with Kyiv, he later chose to support his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and the invasion of Ukraine. In other words, this paper argues that Aliaksandr Lukašenka’s decision to support pro-Russian narratives about Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine was taken as a result of the pressure that Vladimir Putin exerted on him, as well as the awareness that Russia alone guarantees his political survival. However, during their interactions throughout 2022 and 2023, the Belarusian president made efforts to avoid ‘entrapment’—that is, being dragged into the conflict through the commitments he assumed within the Union State—to demonstrate to the entire international community that he still maintains some room of maneuver in his relationship with Russia.