The Russian-Ukrainian war has now been raging for more than 300 days, and – despite a few moments of tension that raised fears of third parties entering the conflict – few countries have come as close to direct involvement in the fighting as Belarus over the past 10 months. Putin’s last ally in Europe.
From the very beginning of the Russian ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, Belarus has been a launching pad for Moscow’s troops in the direction of Kiev, allowing the use of its airspace to launch drones and missiles – according to allegations by the Ukrainian authorities – and carrying out joint military exercises with Putin’s forces near the shared border.
The announcement of the deployment of a ‘joint regional military grouping’ by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on 10 October, as well as the military exercises that took place between 24 October and 1 November in Brest (Belarus), are just a few examples of the Minsk-Moscow alliance in the Ukrainian conflict. More than 9,000 Russian troops, 170 tanks and 200 armoured vehicles joined the exercises in October, according to Moscow, followed in early December by 15 TOR surface-to-air missile systems delivered by Russia and, at the end of the same month, the Iskander missile system and S-400 air defence systems.
In this scenario, Kiev claims it cannot rule out a possible Belarusian entry into the conflict as it sees Minsk as another accomplice to Russian aggression, but analysts quoted by Reuters have suggested that Putin’s aim – in his alliance with Lukashenko – may simply be to distract Ukrainian attention from the front lines in the east and south of the country, where Russia has been concentrating its efforts for several months. However, Belarus – key for Moscow as its last European partner, and having its borders less than 90 kilometres from the Ukrainian capital without the need to cross the Dnieper River – remains deeply reluctant to enter the conflict directly, as its president has stated on several occasions. But that is an issue on which the Kremlin has much to say.
The alliance between Russia and Belarus is far from a balanced partnership. For if Belarus is important to Russia, Russia is even more important to Belarus.
Like all post-Soviet states, after the collapse of the USSR Minsk tried to distance itself as far as possible from the new Russia. The Belarusian president since 1994, Alexander Lukashensko, initially had a lot to do with this. However, his authoritarian, quasi-dictatorial regime – in which human rights have been blatantly repressed and violated over the years – has alienated him from Western countries, making him a kind of ‘international pariah’. Thus, when in 2020 the international community and the Belarusian opposition questioned the validity of an election that gave an absolute majority to the pseudo president-for-life (with 80 percent of the vote) and the country’s inhabitants took to the streets to protest the fraudulent results, Lukashenko had to turn to Russia.
The Eurasian giant helped by providing troops and propaganda experts to contain the protests, but the move did not come cheap for Minsk. Since then, its relationship with Moscow has shaped much of its domestic and international agenda.
The ‘Action Programme of Russia and Belarus for the Implementation of the Provisions of the Agreement on the Creation of the Union State’ that sought a degree of economic integration that would exceed that of the European Union (and which, on the drawing board, would entail a huge economic subordination of Minsk to Moscow) was signed in 1997, but it was not until 2019 that it was formally re-addressed. This was followed in 2021 by the removal of the neutrality clause in the Belarusian constitution, putting almost absolute loyalty to Russia on the table.
Moreover, deep economic dependence on Moscow accounts for almost 50 per cent (over 47 per cent) of Minsk’s trade, and a provision of about 90 per cent of oil and gas energy supplies. Over the past decades, Belarus has bought Russian crude at well below market price (thanks to Russian subsidies) in order to maintain its refineries in Mozyr and Novopolotsk at 100% capacity, and to be able to generate a volume of production that would allow it to export refined oil.
However, in this sense the alliance is also of particular importance to Moscow, as the energy partnership with Belarus allows Russia to have one of its most important oil pipelines cross the neighbouring country and reliably transport part of its crude oil supplies to Europe.
Answering the question of the Kremlin’s real influence on Belarus’s role in the Ukrainian war is, however, a difficult task. While there are many indications that Moscow has the final say, Minsk has a lot to say as well.
This was evidenced by Lukashenko in 2014, when – despite hosting Russian-Ukrainian talks and hosting the signing of the Minsk Agreements in order to temper his role as ‘mediator’ – the president called the Russian invasion ‘a bad precedent’. Now, the Belarusian leader maintains, actively and passively, that his country will not go to direct war, although his actions seem to make Kiev think otherwise.
Moreover, forcing Belarus into his camp could also be a bad decision for Moscow. Lukashenko has less and less support within his own country, which, combined with the international isolation of recent years and the isolation that would result from his entry into the war against his southern neighbour, could be the last straw. Political suicide for the Belarusian president. And, given his ties to the Kremlin, the end of Russia’s last alliance with a European country. A strategic mistake for Putin. 
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