ASSESSMENTS

An Anxious Russia Tries to Pull Belarus Closer

Dec 24, 2019 | 10:30 GMT

People gather for a rally against Belarus' closer integration with Russia in Minsk's Oktyabrskaya Square on Dec. 20, 2019. Belarus is shaping up to be a new hotspot between East and West.

(NATALIA FEDOSENKO/TASS via Getty Images)

Highlights

Belarus will attempt to sustain productive relations with both Russia and Europe, though doing so would most likely require it to give up preferential treatment from Russia.
Moscow will ramp up the pressure on Minsk to accept greater military, political and economic integration.
If Russia pushes too far, however, Belarus could perceive it as an aggressor and lean further toward the West.

Almost six years after Ukraine drove a wedge between Russia and the West, there's a new potential hotspot in the geopolitical competition between the two in Eastern Europe: Belarus. Moscow has been exerting more pressure on Minsk in an effort to bind it economically, politically and militarily to Russia amid fears that a Belarus leaning West would further deprive the Kremlin of one of its last redoubts of strategic depth against Europe. At the same time, too hot a pursuit could instead end up repelling Belarus. Given its own preference, Minsk would rather maintain a balance between the two, but given the intensifying competition between Russia and the West, Belarus may be the site of their next showdown....

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