Vladimir Putin used the territory of Belarus as a military rear base to invade Ukraine. A reality that arouses the anger of many Belarusian dissidents, many of whom have gone into exile in Poland or Lithuania.
His apprehension was well founded. A little over a week ago, Vladimir – whose first name has been changed to protect those close to him – left Minsk for Poland. Initially, it was to visit his mother, a dissident who went into exile in Warsaw to flee the repression of the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. But, having arrived in the Polish capital, the twenty-something made the choice to stay there, and not to return to Belarus. “Just in case, I took everything I needed on me, and I withdrew all the money from my bank account,” says Vladimir behind his small round glasses, seated in an apartment in Warsaw. “On the road, when I was driving towards the Polish border, there were a lot of convoys and military machinery, which went from Brest [une ville frontalière située non loin de la Pologne et de l’Ukraine] to Minsk. »
It is that beyond the political repression, a growing anxiety was rising in Vladimir. That of an external military occupation in his country, on an unprecedented scale in 30 years. In recent weeks, some 30,000 Russian troops have been deployed to Belarus, under the auspices of autocrat Lukashenko. Officially, according to Moscow and Minsk, the goal was to carry out joint maneuvers on Belarusian soil which were to end on February 20. However, not only did the troops never leave Belarus after the scheduled deadline, but it was they who contributed to the invasion of Ukraine, launched by Vladimir Putin on Thursday February 24 at dawn. Because the other front – more subtle, but no less negligible – of the war led by the master of the Kremlin is found in Belarus, which shares a border of nearly 900 kilometers with Ukraine. To tighten the noose around the country, the Russian forces stationed there quickly advanced towards the northern border of Ukraine, with supporting images.
A few weeks ago, moreover, another Belarusian met by The duty and who wishes to preserve her true identity for security reasons noted the increased presence of soldiers not far from her home. “We see them in the streets and in the shops. People are scared. Helicopters fly over the border every night, and that really inflames the situation,” said a 26-year-old woman who lives in the border region of Brest a few days before the invasion.
Lukashenko, Putin’s vassal
“The majority of Belarusians are against this looming war,” said Nadzeya Luchanok, a Belarusian living in exile in Poland. “Lukashenko has long presented himself as a guarantor of Belarusian peace and sovereignty, but it was a lie, and it is coming to light today. He has accepted the presence on Belarusian territory of all these military vehicles and Russian soldiers and, in fact, he is playing Putin’s game. The 30-year-old also recalls “that another kind of war is being waged in Belarus”, this time against opponents of the regime: the latter has imprisoned more than a thousand political prisoners, including her father, Uladzimir Matskevich, a famous Belarusian intellectual and democratic activist. “All human rights are violated, freedom of expression as of association does not exist. The fear of criticizing power has taken hold in the country. »
To the unprecedented momentum of civil society that followed his fraudulent re-election on August 9, 2020, Alexander Lukashenko responded with merciless repression: independent media such as NGOs were liquidated, and the popular white-red- white, colors of protest, is only a memory. More weakened than ever internationally, Lukashenko, targeted by a host of Western sanctions, had no choice but to set his sights on Moscow. His political survival, he now owes it more than ever to Vladimir Putin, whose vassal he has become. “The territory of Belarus has become a large rear military base of Putin’s Russia. This is the price that Lukashenko accepted to receive Putin’s support”, denounces Franak Viačorka, the main adviser to the number 1 opponent in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, met earlier this month at the opposition headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania.
“As long as Putin’s Russia remains in power, Belarusian democracy can never see the light of day,” says Pavel Usov, who heads the Center for Political Analysis and Forecasting, based in Warsaw. According to this political exile, another interest of President Putin would be behind the military occupation in Belarus which participated in the invasion of Ukraine: to take advantage of Lukashenko’s enslavement to carry out the integration of the two countries, desired by the Russian head of state. “Russia is carrying out the plan that has been developed over the past few years, and it is using the situation in Ukraine to achieve its ends. It is fueling a conflict with the West and Ukraine in order, among other things, to deploy its forces in Belarus and further consolidate its influence in the region. For Russia, Lukashenko is just a pawn. Putin has no interest in removing him from power, he is too loyal to him. »
Reform against the background of war
On February 27, this subordination is about to take on significant dimensions when a constitutional referendum will be held in Belarus. It is in fact, in the opinion of Lukashenko’s detractors, a democratic sham. The planned amendments to the Constitution would give lifelong judicial immunity to the Belarusian president, in addition to keeping him in power until 2035, in particular. But it is another aspect of this draft new Constitution which is of particular concern, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine: this reform also provides for the abandonment of the status of neutrality and the status of a non-nuclear state. Clearly, it opens the door to the deployment of nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil, experts point out.
This referendum constitutes a masquerade for Olga, met during a demonstration of support for Ukraine, in Warsaw. She prefers to conceal her true identity, for fear of reprisals against her family who remained in Belarus. “We are against the war, we want Ukraine to preserve its sovereignty and choose its destiny, without a Putin in the background who imposes his views”, says this 40-year-old Belarusian, white-red-white flag on her shoulders . “I fear this integration, I don’t want my country to become any Russian province. We have our own identity. These two crazy presidents want to make a new USSR, but we don’t want it! We want an independent country. Just like the Ukrainians. »