What's next for Belarus? Inside the fight against 'Europe's last dictator'

A woman kneels in front of a riot police line as they block Belarusian opposition supporters rally in the center of Minsk
AP

With her bleached blonde pixie cut and red lipstick, Maria Kolesnikova stands out in a crowd. In the past month, the charismatic musician has become a figurehead for the mass uprising that is raging through Belarus, calling for the resignation of the President.

Alexander Lukashenko, 66, is often described as Europe’s last dictator but after 26 years his country is undergoing a political awakening. The catalyst came on August 9, when Lukashenko claimed to have won 80 per cent of the vote in an election that both US and EU officials have said was not free or fair. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been marching in the streets demanding democracy.

“The women of Belarus are central to the movement,” says Olga Onuch, author of Mapping Mass Mobilisation. “They are a difficult adversary for Lukashenko because middle-aged women, grandmothers or young mothers holding children being bullied or arrested by the militia makes for bad optics.” Lukashenko’s crackdown is escalating in brutal fashion. On Monday, Kolesnikova, known as “Masha”, was abducted in Minsk.

There was the sound of a phone falling to the ground and a scuffle, according to a witness. “I turned around and saw that people in masks were pushing Maria into this minibus,” a woman told the Belarusian website Tut.by. “Her phone flew out of her hand, one of these people picked it up, jumped into the bus and drove off.” Then on Wednesday there were reports that Kolesnikova ripped up her passport to avoid being deported. She tried to run away but is now in police custody.

AP

Her two allies, both of whom are also new to politics, mother Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and businesswoman Veronika Tsepkalo, have already fled the country, to Lithuania and Russia respectively, and on Wednesday opposition politician Maxim Znak was detained by masked men. This leaves just one member of the opposition’s co-ordination council not in prison, Nobel Literature Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. She said that people tried to break into her apartment on Wednesday.

That comes after 633 were detained by police at a protest on Sunday. “Each week we see the protesters innovate in an impressive, creative way,” says Onuch. They make plans on Telegram group Nexta, which means “Somebody” and was set up by 23-year-old Stepan Putsilo, who is from Belarus but lives in Poland, who back the opposition movement and yesterday pushed the EU to take action against Lukashenko’s repression. Nexta has more than two million members (the entire population of Belarus is nine million). Tikhanovskaya rejects the term opposition, saying that it is wrong because “we are the majority”. The Mobilise Project found that the main reason motivating them is the regime’s violence and repression, followed by fraudulent elections and wanting more democracy and a better economic future.

The movement encompasses people of all ages, genders and political persuasions, with younger people showing their grandparents how to use Telegram. Many of them have not been involved in politics before but are learning fast and are popular with the global press (Kolesnikova recently befriended reporters by giving them ice cream). Lukashenko’s hardline response is only galvanising them further.

Alexieveich has been clear that this is not a coup. They want dialogue about starting to build a new democracy and they won’t be cowed by the regime.

“The cat is out of the box,” says Onuch. “The mood in the regime is nervous,” agrees Ryhor Astapenia, Academy Fellow for Belarus at Chatham House. “Lots of people in the regime are quietly thinking about what they might do next. What is certain is that this political crisis will be long, people want to protest and Lukashenko will defend himself. His supporters have a stake in the situation — they are defending themselves from protesters.” Onuch says there is still a way for the President to “negotiate his way out without having to go to jail or flee”.

Maria Kolesnikova, one of Belarus' opposition leaders, center, gestures during a rally in Minsk
AP

“I don’t know what today will bring,” writes photographer Yauhen Yerchak, whose pictures show women being pulled off the streets by men in balaclavas and people wrapped in Belarusian flags refusing to back down.

Covid is another reason Belarus was spurred into action after more than a quarter of a century of Lukashenko’s rule. The former collective farm boss came to power in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He styles himself as a strongman, with links to Russia (the country’s main export is oil, which relies on raw materials from Russia). But that image has proved impossible to sustain in the face of a coronavirus-induced contraction in the economy and how badly the country handled the pandemic. Lukashenko appears not to care about the hundreds of deaths and failing businesses.

He has dubbed Covid a “psychosis” and his solutions for keeping it at bay were drinking vodka, playing ice hockey, going to the sauna, and riding tractors, which he called “tractor therapy”. This has been catastrophic for his popularity at a time when hospitals faced a shortage of personal protective equipment and 73,208 cases.

Everywhere Lukashenko goes in Belarus, even to his beloved tractor factories, he faces cries of “resign!” but he is intransigent. “I am not going to leave just like that,” he said this week. “I have built up Belarus for a quarter of a century. Only I can protect Belarusians now.”

But he is caught in a bind between his need for support and the Kremlin wanting deeper economic integration between the two countries. Putin and Lukashenko are meeting in Moscow on Monday. “Putin is in a difficult situation,” says Astapenia. “It is obvious that Lukashenko is illegitimate but Putin doesn’t want to set a precedent in a neighbouring country of a President being toppled. He supports autocracy.”

For now though, Lukashenko is capitalising on Putin’s support, speaking on Russia Today. He’s blocked a lot of TV channels so that all there is left for people to watch that isn’t state propaganda is the English Premier League. All non-government news and entertainment have moved to Telegram.

Belarus has a fractured history with the US and the EU. In 2008, the US imposed sanctions against Belarus because of human rights abuses. Lukashenko retaliated by expelling the US ambassador. How strong is the opposition? “I do not see any cracks,” says Astapenia. “There is a problem of communication because Maria is in prison and Svetlana is in exile but they are still impressive.”

Covid showed Tikhanovskaya and many others what they were capable of. Her husband, blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, published an interview with a doctor criticising how the pandemic was being handled and in response people started fundraising to support the doctor. In one day they raised what he earns in a year. “People then understood that they can work together,” Tikhanovskaya said.

Many have been dreaming of this since the end of Communism and there is a fierce sense of national pride. When Lukashenko banned hanging flags, people hung out laundry in the flag’s red and white colours instead. Protesters are singing traditional songs in Belarusian and blasting them from their car stereos.

Getty Images

This is a political statement, as Russian is the main language in Belarus and speaking or singing in Belarusian defies Lukashenko’s alliance with Putin. One popular one is: “To love our Belarus, our dear mother, You have to have been to different spots. You will understand then: under your feet. Three elephants stand without moving.” Astapenia says no one understands what it means but it is a rousing anthem as it represents creative freedom and the country’s true identity.

“There is a mix of feelings on the streets — hope, fear, depression, anger,” says Astapenia. “The situation changes every five minutes. Things in Belarus are pretty dangerous and it is likely lots of people will go into exile. But people want to stay and fight and what’s happened with Kolesnikova has made them even more determined that Lukashenko must leave. We can’t go back.”

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