Poland (1956–1976)/ Belarus (1996–2020)

The emergence stage in both Poland and Belarus unfolded in different political and economic contexts, but had many striking similarities, most prominently in the duration of this phase and in the repertoire of protest. As in Poland, everyday resistance, mobilizing efforts, and protests against the Lukashenka regime were erupting with varying intensity for over two decades.

The emergence stage in Belarus began when Lukashenka (who became president in 1994) started tightening his grip on power in 1996. He avoided any serious market reforms and proposed the second referendum to amend the constitution, extended his term in office till 2001, and gained more control over the parliament and the Constitutional Court.

Poland, on the other hand, started accumulating its culture of rebellion during the 1956 “October Thaw,” a period of relative relaxation of the Stalinist grip on the cultural, political, and economic life. Preventive censorship was relaxed, and an explosion of artistic and intellectual activity followed. It set Poland on the course that eventually made it one of the most, if not the most intellectually and artistically open country in the Soviet Bloc.

Interestingly, in this phase both countries experienced similar processes of social movement formation. Falling short of constituting a frontal challenge to their respective regimes, all varied activities that lasted for two decades in each country, sometimes openly rebellious, at other times clandestine or semi-official, were eroding the legitimacy of the respective systems.

The bulk of anti-systemic activity in Poland was concentrated in the domain of culture, in which several social milieus offered ideas that eventually proved resonant as protest frames in 1968 and 1970. There were no sustained anti-regime organizations during this period in Poland. Public expressions of grievances were dominated by letters, with two outbursts of demonstrations in 1968 and the tragically suppressed workers strikes and demonstrations in December 1970.

It is hard to estimate the number of people “sitting on the fence” in Poland during this period. They refrained from frontally challenging the unwanted system, but lived, more or less secretly, in alternative cultural worlds fueled by the officially forbidden Radio Free Europe broadcasts, some traveler accounts, the increasingly accessible world of underground or emigree publishing, and even some liberal elements of the official culture. The protests of 1968 and 1970 were the most spectacular challenges to the power of communists during this period, but the mostly low-key disapproval of the system, ranging from small acts of Scottian “everyday resistance” (1985) to several efforts to organize underground groups, was constant and more widespread in Poland that in other countries of the Soviet Bloc.

In a similar manner, Belarusian opposition worked mostly underground and used yearly events – the so-called Chernobyl Way (April 26)Footnote ⁴ and the Freedom Day (March 25)Footnote ⁵ – to express cyclically their grievances with the Government. Many people participated in demonstrations organized to protest the results of the rigged – as was widely believed – presidential elections in 2001 (estimated 1,000 protesters), 2006 (estimated 10,000 protesters), 2010 (estimated 40,000 protesters), and 2015 (estimated 200 protesters) (Ash 2015). All presidential elections in Belarus, starting in 2001, failed to meet the OSCE standards and were not recognized as free or fair.

In the spring of 1996, the country experienced one of the largest demonstrations in the period between 1991 and 2020. According to various estimates, between sixty and one hundred thousand people took to the streets in Minsk, the capital of Belarus (“Belarusian Spring” 2018). The authorities brutally dispersed the protests and used a wide range of repressive measures to punish the protesters, including fines, administrative arrests, expulsions of students from universities, and forcing employers to dismiss their employees. The constitutional changes in November 1996 consolidated Lukashenka’s rule and since then the Belarusian political system has been careening down a path of intensifying authoritarian-sultanism (Wilson Reference Wilson2021).

The Belarusian authorities used all tools of state coercion at their disposal to demobilize and criminalize all oppositional activities, persecuting displays of historic white-red-white symbols,Footnote ⁶ and censoring out ethno-national references used in protest activities for the duration of the two decades of protests.

In Poland, as the sixties progressed, the Party reasserted itself and its censorship became more intrusive, which led to a rebellion of 1968. The workers were increasingly unhappy and their mounting grievances, combined with a triggering event of price increases, eventually produced a strike in December 1970 that ended up in the tragedy when soldiers fired on protesting workers. At least 40 people lost their lives and over 1,000 were wounded.Footnote ⁷

By contrast, in Belarus the key trigger was non-economic. The COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for civil society activism after Lukashenka chose to disregard the coronavirus threat and labeled it a “psychosis.” While Lukashenka and his government lacked the resources to contain and mitigate the virus, Belarusian people felt a disconnect between insecurity and their expectations shaped by the years of the government’s heavy emphasis on political stability and guarantees of security (Kulakevich and Augsburger Reference Kulakevich and Augsburger2021). Lacking a national lockdown, Belarus became the only country in the region with open borders during the first wave of the pandemic. As a result, neglected Belarusian citizens had to adapt to the new situation and protect themselves on their own by creating structures of self-help, a quintessential mechanism of civil society building. For example, the #ByCovid19 fundraising campaign raised over $360,000 for doctors. Many civil leaders, opposition activists, and doctors called for a “People’s Quarantine,”Footnote ⁸ asking everybody to stay home and minimize all social contacts. They also reported on the rising number of Covid-19 cases and criticized the official underreporting of fatalities (Kulakevich Reference Kulakevich2020a).

During the election campaign preceding the presidential vote on August 9, hundreds of volunteers joined the alternative candidates’ teams, as people stood in lines for hours to sign petitions required to put alternative candidates on the ballot. A series of street protests against Lukashenka, labeled the “Slipper Revolution,”Footnote ⁹ occurred in Minsk and at least 35 regional centers. The intense solidarity many people experienced while dealing with the epidemic on their own and engaging in the pre-election mobilization signaled the beginning of the coalescence stage.

The key finding is that the emergence stage, both in Poland (1956–76) and Belarus (1996–2020) was dominated by largely isolated outbursts of protests before the people in both countries became “aware of each other” and created institutional vehicles for more organized mobilization during the coalescence stage.

Poland (1976-1980)/ Belarus (May - August 2020)

Stage two, known as coalescence, or the “popular stage,” is the time when individuals unhappy with their situation become unified and more strategic in their outlook. According to Hopper, “this is the stage when individuals participating in the mass behavior of the preceding stage become aware of each other” (Reference Hopper1950, 273). Both social movements in Poland and Belarus successfully used the relatively open political opportunity to proceed from isolated outbursts of protest into more systematically coordinated and durable collective actions.

The comparison of the coalescence stages revealed a consequential difference between the two cases, in the role of communication technology in mobilization. Relying on vastly different technologies, both Poles and Belarusians successfully achieved “mobilization of consensus,” the central goal of the coalescence stage. But the media technologies of both anti-regime mobilizations differed greatly, resulting in very different timeframes and thus dynamics of protest.

Between June 1976 and August 1980, in just over four years, Poland increasingly suffering from the communist economy of shortages was transformed from a rebellious albeit controlled Soviet satellite into an island of relative freedom. It was possible due to the indefatigable and creative efforts of many people who set up and ran several organizations, heeding a call by Jacek Kuroń, one of the most respected dissident leaders, “to form their own committees, not to burn the existing ones.”Footnote ¹⁰ These efforts eventually culminated in the massive mobilization of August 1980 that was presaged, in both cultural and organizational terms, by the huge Papal masses of 1979. The Pope’s 1979 visit to his native country was a “psychological earthquake” to use an apt phrase of the Viennese Cardinal König (Kubik Reference Kubik1994, 139). His enormous masses, attended by millions, combining religious themes with the presentation of an attractive philosophy of work and espousing basic human and political rights, constituted a mighty blow to the ideological façade of the communist state. All of this was broadcast on state TV and radio (although in a censored form), so for the first time in the history of the Soviet Bloc, millions of people were exposed, either in person or via various media, to a message delivered by a charismatic religious leader: “These gigantic events were not interrupted by the police or the state’s security forces. For decades, Poles referred to their government as ‘they’ without defining what ‘us’ meant. But as Adam Michnik [arguably the most influential dissident], observed, Poles could finally visualize ‘us.’ People realized that their strength was in numbers, and this helped to break a collective barrier of fear” (Bartkowski Reference Bartkowski2009). As a result, by the end of the 1970s, a broad coalition of workers, peasants, intellectuals, and students, most of them Catholics, became an organized movement for change.

The cultural frames that played a crucial role in generating a powerful alternative culture were organized around such themes as respecting universal human and political rights, reclaiming national independence, restoring workers’ social rights, renewing the dignity of the human person and human work, and establishing religious freedom. Eventually, all these themes found expression in Solidarity’s twenty-one demands. The repertoire of protest evolved from outburst of strike activity and street demonstrations to a massive, coordinated national strike. This dramatic transformation of the situation of the country was also possible because of the far-reaching change in the structure of political opportunities. Two events need to be noted here: the 1975 Helsinki Agreements and Cardinal Wojtyła‘s ascent to the papal throne in 1978. Suddenly, the Polish communists were facing a well-organized, non-violent challenge.

The coalescence stage in Belarus was much shorter than in Poland. It took three months compared to four years in the latter country. This shockingly short length in Belarus can be explained by the availability of a new technology, Telegram, that was operational despite internet blackouts and disseminated information to millions of people at once. In contrast to Poland, where the dissidents had to rely on time-consuming and dangerous underground printing to produce and disseminate uncensored materials, Belarusian news were spread out immediately without the need for complex organizational structures.

Belarusians started becoming aware of each other on a national scale during the collection of signatures to nominate candidates for the post of the President of Belarus that kicked off on May 21. Large crowds of supporters were immediately attracted to the campaigns of alternative candidates.

Belarusian “mobilization of consensus” became massive on August 9, 2020, right after the presidential election, when hundreds of thousands of people poured to the streets to protest what they perceived as a fraudulent attempt to steal the election.Footnote ¹¹ As in the previous presidential elections, Lukashenka did not hesitate to use force to disperse the protesters. This time, however, was different. The Belarusian authorities unleashed unprecedented violence. Heavily armed riot police used tear gas, flash grenades, rubber bullets, and water cannons to crackdown on the protesters. Hundreds were jailed, tortured, and hospitalized after confrontations throughout the night. The human rights center “Viasna” reported 3,633Footnote ¹² politically motivated incidents, including 998Footnote ¹³ arrests as well as fines and searches on August 9 alone.

The Belarusian government complemented this brutal crackdown with an internet blackout. Telegram’s technology, founded by a Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, who had programmed the application to withstand the blackout, became the key source of information on the protests for Belarusians. The Nexta Telegram channel, founded by a 22-year-old opposition blogger Stsiapan Putsila, which he had run in exile from Poland since 2018, provided an opportunity for Belarusians to connect in the vacuum during the internet blackouts. Nexta subscribers were able to share photos and videos of violence unfolding around them to the audience of around two million fellow Nexta members. Nexta laid the government’s savagery bare while the state media tried to cover it up. With the help of evidence gathered during the first few days of violence, the UN experts reported on at least 450Footnote ¹⁴ documented cases of torture and mistreatment of people, including sexual abuse and rape with rubber batons.

The violent crackdown on the protesters triggered much bigger mobilization. The protests started taking place daily. Sunday gatherings in Minsk were attracting hundreds of thousands of people. Historic white-red-white flag took on the new life and became the most visible and unifying symbol, inspiring Belarusian people across the country to protest the regime’s violence (Kulakevich Reference Kulakevich2020b). Already in August, the pictures of hundreds of thousands of people under white-red-white colors had been featured by the media outlets across the world.

Belarusians displayed white-red-white flags on buildings and used the tri-color scheme on curtains, clothing, and lighting displays on their balconies. Musicians from such bands as Tor, Pomidor/OFF, Stary Olsa and many others wrote songs and produced video clips featuring white and red symbols. For example, the Nizkiz released a video clip for the song “Rules” that later had over one million views, in which they described how Belarusians suddenly became aware of each other in the streets after someone raised a historic white-red-white flag. While the authorities were doing their best to tear down the red and white symbols, Belarusians kept coming up with new, ingenious forms of display. They would replace flags with hundreds of white and red ribbons tied to fences, making it difficult for the authorities to remove them. Thousands of people connected through courtyard Telegram chats and would gather daily for tea and pastries (often in white and red colors). Later, on November 11, Raman Bandarenka was beaten to death by Belarusian security forces for protecting white-red-white symbols of protests in his courtyard from the people taking down the white-red-white ribbons.

In sum, the mobilization’s coalescence stage peaked when the massive and organized crowds of protesters, who embraced white-red-white colors on an unprecedented scale, asserted their membership in an imagined community that was separate from Lukashenka’s vision of Belarusian identity, and in doing so condemned the terror unleashed by his security forces and rejected his claims to legitimacy.

The comparison of the coalescence stages in Belarus and Poland showed that digital technology, even if it is subjected to brutal interventions, not only facilitates effective organization of protests, but also contributes to the radical acceleration of the whole mobilization process, dramatically shortening the coalescence stage.

Poland (1980–1988)/ Belarus (August – October 2020)

The third stage of movement formation, bureaucratization, is characterized by a higher level of organization. At this stage, the movement transitions from the primary dependence on mass demonstrations or symbolic leaders to an organization-driven and thus more sustainable mobilization.

Examination of the bureaucratization stages revealed most significant and telling differences between the two cases. While in Poland during the bureaucratization phase the opposition to the regime was eventually forced underground, in Belarus it was forced mostly abroad, with some members of the budding organizations going underground. External bureaucratization was thus dominant, while internal bureaucratization was also taking place, though the development of worker and student unions inside of the country has been slow due to the increasingly brutal crackdown on the opposition. Despite the intensifying sanctions from the West, repeatedly requested by the exiled “bureaucracy” of the pro-democratic movement, Lukashenka – with Putin’s backing – has been enjoying impunity while suppressing all forms of discontent with his rule.

Another interesting finding is that Lukashenka, always prone to rely on the strategy of preemption (Silitski Reference Silitski2005), employed it with extraordinary brutality, eliminating potential democratic rivals before the presidential election. He forced them into exile as the protests were progressing. His preemption was timely, while in Poland in 1980-81 it was belated, as the Martial Law was introduced only after the democratic movement had achieved not only a high level of operational capacity, but also official recognition, both unprecedented in the history of the Soviet Bloc. Moreover, the authorities never forced the leaders to leave the country, although they exerted a lot of pressure on some of them and several did emigrate. However, most stayed in Poland, served their sentences, and resumed oppositional activity as soon as they had a chance.

The massive bureaucracy of Solidarity proved to be resilient, although initially all the organizational activities had to go underground. Some leaders escaped arrest, others were released after serving relatively short time, while thousands of members sprang to action, creating underground cells of the movement. Gradually, the central governing structures of the clandestine union were restored. The underground Interim Coordinating Commission (TKK) was created on April 22, 1982. Wałęsa, released from internment on November 14, 1982, returned to his position as the movement’s leader. An ingenious power-sharing arrangement emerged: Wałęsa represented Solidarity in open dealings with the authorities, while the TKK coordinated the union’s clandestine activities. On September 30, 1986, the formation of the Interim Solidarity Council was publicly announced. Several prominent activists emerged from underground to join Wałęsa in this “bureaucracy” whose formation sent a signal that the movement was regaining its position in the Polish public life.

During its bureaucratization stage, the Solidarity movement not only developed a massive organizational structure, but it also managed to transform it into a durable and extensive underground network able to exert so much pressure on the communist authorities that they eventually engaged in negotiating regime transformation. This success was undoubtedly made possible by the robust and multi-faceted alternative culture build around the myriads of fully or partially independent artistic and cultural initiatives, Roman Catholic symbolism, revived independence aspirations, and a dose of realism (the idea of “self-limiting revolution”).

Solidarity’s success would have not been possible, however, without an extraordinarily advantageous (open) political opportunity structure. In 1980–81, the Soviets, weakened by the failing military intervention in Afghanistan, warned by the US President Carter, reassured by the Polish authorities of their ability to control the situation, and fearful of the expected fierceness of Polish resistance, gave up the idea of intervention (Paczkowski and Byrne Reference Paczkowski and Byrne2007; Paczkowski Reference Paczkowski and Cave1998, 418; Modzelewski Reference Modzelewski2013, 286–7; Garthoff Reference Garthoff1998).Footnote ¹⁵ In 1988–89, the Soviet Communist Party had a new Secretary General, open to cultural (glasnost) and political (perestroika) experimentation, who eventually rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine. As is demonstrated by his published correspondence with Jaruzelski and the accounts of his visit to Poland in 1988, Gorbachev observed the Polish experiment with interest and a dose of sympathy, and refrained from “lecturing” or threatening Poles with sanctions or military intervention (Stępień-Kuczyńska Reference Stępień-Kuczyńska2020).Footnote ¹⁶

In Belarus, Lukashenka preemptively attacked potential protest leaders by either imprisoning them or forcing them to flee the country, as they feared for their lives. Initially three men geared up to challenge Lukashenka’s presidential bid. But he jailed the banker Viktar Babaryka and blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski and forced the former diplomat Valery Tsapkala into exile. When millions of people united around the seemingly implausible candidacy of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenka forced her into exile as well. The Belarusian government also did not give a chance to Maria Kalesnikava, who was imprisoned after refusing to leave the country under pressure, or Pavel Latushka, former Minister of Culture, who had to leave the country under the threat of imprisonment. As a result, when factory workers joined mass protests calling for Lukashenka to step down, Tsikhanouskaya had already fled the country in fear for her life and moved to neighboring Vilnius, Lithuania. This is in a stark contrast to the situation of Lech Wałęsa, who became the leader of massive strikes in the summer of 1980 and chairman of an independent labor union. Tsikhanouskaya was in the position to call the massive strike only at the end of October 2020, but by then the Belarusian authorities had already managed to recover from the initial shock of unexpected mass rebellion.

On August 14, in Vilnius, Tsikhanouskaya founded the Coordination Council of Belarus to work on a peaceful transfer of power and overcome the political crisis in the country. The Council consists of several working groups focused on supporting the Belarusian language and culture, developing education initiatives, documenting human rights abuses, helping to organize elections to collective bodies of territorial public self-government (COTOS), informing about the possibilities of receiving assistance for those who lost jobs, exchanging information and analysis of the processes taking place within church communities and religious organizations, and analyzing economic processes in Belarus. The office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is a separate entity and consists of her, advisors on domestic and international affairs, as well as communications and public outreach staff.

Besides the Coordination Council and the office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, there are several other organizational initiatives run by the exiled leaders. At the end of October 2020, Pavel Latushka, who is a member of the Board of the Coordination Council, founded National Anti-Crisis Management with the purpose to ensure stability in Belarus when Lukashenka resigns. National Anti-Crisis Management cooperates with the Coordination Council and the office of Tsikhanouskaya. It is active in several fields, including economy and finance, foreign policy and trade, justice, security, social policy, and regional development. Many initiatives representing specific professions, including ByPol created by former security forces and BySol created by sports officials and athletes, cooperate with the National Anti-Crisis Management and the Coordination Council. In sum, while the bureaucratization stage matured and an extensive organizational structure was formed, its main mode of operation inside of the country had to be mass rallies. Trained staff were able to carry out their organizational work mostly abroad and thus their effectiveness inside of the country was limited.

In another sharp contrast to the Polish situation in 1988–89, when Gorbachev was ready to experiment, Putin has so farFootnote ¹⁷ remained steadfast in his support for the sultanistic leader of Belarus. The Kremlin provided a crucial lifeline to Lukashenka when mass protests following the presidential vote initially caught him off guard, which, in turn, provided him with an opportunity to demonstrate to his apparatus and security forces that he was not alone and was able to sustain his grip on power. According to the data provided by the human rights center “Viasna,” after the major violent crackdown during the first three days immediately following the presidential election on August 9, 2020, the repression ceased for two weeks and then resumed on a massive scale on August 27, 2020, when Lukashenka announced that the prime ministers of Belarus and Russia would hold talks on refinancing the Belarusian state debt based on his agreement with Putin. In addition to verbal support for the Belarusian ruler recognizing him as the legitimate president, the Russian leader promised Belarus a US $1.5 billion emergency loan. Russia also has promised to protect Belarus from external military threats and warned foreign powers not to interfere in Belarus’ affairs.

Having secured the Kremlin’s support, Lukashenka started eliminating all potential challengers by forcing them into exile or throwing them in jail and unleashed brutal force on everyone expressing disapproval of his rule, thus raising the cost of open mobilization.

Poland (Post-1989 Period)

In August 1989, the region’s first noncommunist prime minister since the 1940s, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was appointed by the Polish parliament to head a new government. It was dominated by Solidarity representatives and received the broad popular mandate to implement wide ranging economic, political, and social reforms to stabilize the country’s crumbling economy and democratize its politics.

Soon afterwards, Solidarity split into two institutional vehicles: a labor union and a party playing a key role both in the Parliament and the executive. Solidarity Union, through its frequent strikes and demonstrations, became a major corrective force during the early years of instituting far-reaching economic reforms designed to take the country from the brink of hyperinflation to a viable capitalist economy (Ekiert and Kubik Reference Ekiert and Kubik1999). But eventually it started losing members, ideologically turned sharply to the right (Ost Reference Ost2005), and its “heroic phase” (1980–89) became an object of intense mnemonic battles (Kubik Reference Kubik2015). From a consequential protagonist of history, it morphed into a divisive and controversial protagonist (hero or villain?) in writing history.

The 1989–2021 period in Polish history is already a subject of intense debates, strongly colored by the ideology of participants. But most observers agree that Poland achieved spectacular economic successes and despite the recent turn toward right-wing populism, has managed to build one of the most successful democratic polities in postcommunist Europe. The Polish case shows that a non-violent social movement can be a power force driving massive, and by and large successful, cultural, social, economic, and broadly pro-democratic transformations.

Belarus (Continued Bureaucratization)

It is still hard to talk about decline in the case of Belarus because at the moment of this writing in late 2021, the events in Belarus are still unfolding and the bureaucratization stage continues. While the movement bureaucracy is operating predominantly outside the country’s borders, Lukashenka has unleashed brutal force on the protesters, suppressing any signs of protest activities in desire to avoid another wave of mass mobilization. Since the beginning of the presidential election campaign in May 2020, the number of political prisoners in Belarus has increased from three to 927 as of December 18, 2021.Footnote ¹⁸ The Human Rights Center “Viasna” reported 167 political prisoners in December 2020; this number increased by 555% since the beginning of 2021. The liquidation of over 270 NGOs since July 2021 shows the unprecedented scale of the crackdown on the civil society in Belarus.

Another unprecedented act, demonstrating Lukashenka’s impunity, came on May 23, 2021, with the interception of a Ryanair flight carrying Belarusian opposition journalist and former editor-in-chief of the Telegram Nexta channel Raman Pratasevich and 132 other passengers. The forced landing of a civilian aircraft, traveling between two EU capitals, in order to execute a political arrest, demonstrated that Lukashenka is serious about getting rid of everyone who disagrees with the official line by using any means. Lukashenka continued flaunting his impunity by encouraging a humanitarian crisis on its own border, which appeared to be a ploy to flood Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, the EU members, with large numbers of migrants in retaliation for a series of sanctions against the Lukashenka government (Kulakevich Reference Kulakevich2021b).

A bundle of international sanctions was imposed on the Belarusian authorities following the August 2020 crackdown. In September 2020, the United States and the European Union refused to recognize Lukashenka’s legitimacy and imposed a series of sanctions, targeting Belarusian officials with asset freezes and travel bans. In December 2020, the U.S. Government adopted the Belarus Democracy Act, which authorized the White House to pressure Minsk with sanctions. In April 2021, the U.S. announced the resumption of sanctions against large petrochemical enterprises: Belarusian Oil Trade House, Belneftekhim, Belneftekhim USA Inc, Belshina, Grodno Azot, Grodno Khimvolokno, Lakokraska, Naftan, and Polotsk Steklovolokno. The U.S. reimposed full sanctions on these enterprises on June 3, 2021, prohibiting U.S. people and businesses from conducting financial transactions with them. By June 2021, the EU imposed four rounds of sanctions, punishing a total of 166 individuals and 15 entities. On June 21, 2021, the United States, the EU, the UK, and Canada introduced coordinated sanctions following the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk. On August 9, 2021, the one-year anniversary of the presidential election that set off months of massive protests in Belarus, the U.S., coinciding with parallel sanctions packages by the United Kingdom and Canada, broadened its sanctions in response to the regime’s ongoing political repression and corruption. The European Union imposed the fifth package of sanctions against Belarus, impacting 17 people and 12 entities, over the migration crisis along the Belarusian border with the EU members.

The fact that Lukashenka, already a subject of Western sanctions, decided to hijack a civilian passenger plane and force it to land in Minsk to capture a political opponent as well as to manufacture a humanitarian crisis on the border with the European Union shows that he does not feel the need to respect borders, diplomatic protocols, or international objections to his actions, as long as he can count on Putin’s support. Moscow not only provided a crucial lifeline to Lukashenka amid the largest wave of protests in the history of independent Belarus, but its support did not waver after the plane hijacking and the unfolding migration crisis. Days after the act of air piracy, on May 29–30, Putin hosted Lukashenka in Sochi, a Russian resort city, where they spent five hours talking and then went on a yacht trip on the Black Sea. After their meeting, the Kremlin announced that it would soon release a delayed $500 million loan installment to Belarus and agreed to increase the number of flights between Belarus and Russia (Kulakevich Reference Kulakevich2021a). Amid the migration crisis, Lukashenka demonstrated his loyalty to Putin by declaring that the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014, was legally a Russian territory.

As of December 2021, the struggle to remove Lukashenka continues on two stages: inside and outside Belarus. In Belarus, the Lukashenka regime relies on physical force, preventing the emergence of a “bureaucratized” democratic movement whose efforts to grow and mature he had been skillfully undermining for decades (Silitski Reference Silitski2005; Kulakevich Reference Kulakevich2020c; Wilson Reference Wilson2021). On the other side are the Belarusian people, heavily suppressed by the law-enforcement but equipped with their newly reinvigorated sense of national identity, who refuse to remain under the Lukashenka’s oppression. Outside Belarus, there are various Western national and transnational institutions relentlessly lobbied by the “bureaucracy” of the Belarusian democratic movement headed by Tsikhanouskaya and the Russian “black knight,”Footnote ¹⁹ equally relentlessly lobbied by Lukashenka.