If you missed the developments in Belarus, the Belarusian Maidan is unfolding there right now after the yet-another-one reelection of Alexander Lukashenko, an eternal post-Soviet president of Belarus. As opposed to the Russians who had to accept Putin’s amendment to the Constitution securing his stay in power up to the year 2036, the younger generation of the Belarusians has long observed with sympathy the Ukrainian attempt to break free from the Russian Federation and at the same time reinforce its identity and statehood. The latest Kremlin’s ambition to make Belarus a subject of the Russian Federation was the last straw.
The difference is that Ukraine gave birth to several nationalist leaders, above all, Andriy Biletsky who still challenges the globalist interpretation of the far from complete revolution, whereas the leaders of Belarusian opposition simply try to reproduce the agenda of both their Western and Russian colleagues. Probably you also heard that the most noticeable figure of the Russian liberal opposition, Alexei Navalny, has no exact answer to the question who has the right to the Crimea. In other words, maybe Putin’s annexation of the Crimea out of concern with the Ukrainian “radicals” was justified. However, the main change in the people’s mindset and activization of the patriotic resistance successfuly takes place in Belarus.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the main opponent of Lukashenko, is a wife of an imprisoned oppositionist blogger, a technical candidate who promised to release the political prisoners and hold fair presidential election if she wins. Rude falsification of the results implies that she indeed won, whereas Lukashenko’s real electoral support reportedly amounts to 3%. After the beginning of the protests against the official Lukashenko’s result (over 79%), she escaped to Lithuania in exchange for the release of her HQ’s coordinator. On the eve of her departure, she asked the protesters to go home. The call, presumably filmed under pressure in the building of the Central Electoral Commision, was expectedly ignored.
At the moment, the Belarusians build the barricades in Minsk and other cities, whereas the government uses against them rubber bullets and stun grenades. Officially, one person died, although participants report about four persons killed in clashes. Internet in the territory of Belarus is switched off, the authorities try to take away from the streets everything usable for the barricades. According to the latest information, some factories went on strike, which yields serious consequences for the country with almost zero private ownership.
The ministers of foreign affairs of countries comprising the recently established Lublin Triangle (Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland) have already condemned the governmental violence, and the official election results may be not recognized depending on the further developments.
Regardless of the final outcome, Belarus will no longer fit in existing geopolitical conjuncture at the cost of lasting economical turbulence, like in Ukraine. Under such conditions, we welcome Belarus in the emerging Intermarium partnership: so far, even when Lukashenko showed interest in new energy corridors and economic cooperation with the region’s countries, Russia blocked this rapprochement. Belarusian speakers who attended the conferences of the Intermarium Support Group, since 2018 have been forced to refrain from further participation. The grip of the Russian special services is too strong to consider real regional cooperation, so any developments weakening it and at the same time strengthening Belarusian sovereignty within the shaping Intermarium union are much required. To sum up, the emblem of Intermarium seen on the unofficial yet historical and cherished by the patriots Belarusian national flag, is not only a symbol of national resistance in the streets, and our task is to make it the pinnacle of Belarusian revolutionary aspirations.
