ANALYSIS: Belarus, Armed Vassal: How Lukashenko Became Russia's Launchpad Against NATO

A neighbor turned rear base for the aggressor

Alexander Lukashenko's Belarus is no longer a neutral state wedged between Russia and the European Union. It is a Russian military operations base disguised as a sovereign state. Since 2022, its territory has served as a launch platform for the invasion of Ukraine, its airports host Russian military aircraft, and its armed forces are progressively integrating into Moscow's command structure. Lukashenko sold Belarusian sovereignty for his own political survival. That is a Faustian bargain whose consequences weigh on all of Europe.

In June 2026, the threat represented by this asymmetric alliance has not faded — it has sharpened. Western intelligence and public reports document a build-up of Russian strike capability from Belarusian territory, regular provocations in the airspace of the Baltic states and Poland, and hybrid operations that systematically probe the limits of NATO's response. The Alliance's eastern flank is not only threatened from the east: it is also threatened from the north, from Belarus.

Kaliningrad and Belarus: a pincer around Poland

Geographically, the combination of Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad exclave creates a pincer around Poland and potentially isolates the Baltic states. The "Suwalki Corridor" — a strip of land roughly one hundred kilometers wide separating Kaliningrad from Belarus, and the only land connection between the Baltics and the rest of NATO — is one of the Alliance's most closely monitored strategic friction points. If this corridor were cut, the Baltic states would find themselves geographically isolated from the rest of allied territory.

This geography is not new, but it takes on a new dimension with Belarus's total alignment with Russia. What before 2022 was a theoretical threat has become an operational contingency that NATO planners must treat with the seriousness it deserves. The July 7–8, 2026 Ankara summit must address this threat with a clarity that has not always been forthcoming.

Lukashenko is often portrayed as an unwilling vassal of Putin, forced by the circumstances of the 2020 political crisis. That is partially true. But after four years, this reading is insufficient. Lukashenko makes choices. He chooses to let Russia use his territory to strike Ukraine. He chooses to repress his opposition. He chooses Putin over his own people. He is an active tyrant, not a passive victim.

Su-24M and Su-30SM2 rehearsing strikes toward the Baltic

On June 21, 2026, Army Recognition documented significant Russian exercises from Kaliningrad: Su-24M bombers and Su-30SM2 fighters rehearsing strike operations toward the Baltic Sea. These exercises are not routine training maneuvers: they simulate precise attacks on targets in the Baltic zone — potentially NATO ships, ports, and coastal infrastructure of the Baltic states or Poland.

The frequency and intensity of these exercises from Kaliningrad have increased since 2022. The exclave is densely militarized — Iskander missiles, advanced air defense systems, ground forces, naval base — and represents an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capability that NATO must take seriously in its eastern flank defense planning. Kaliningrad is a thorn in the Alliance's side, deliberately maintained and reinforced by Moscow.

The implications for Baltic defense

Kaliningrad's exercises have direct implications for the defense of the Baltic states and the security of the Suwalki Corridor. If Russia were to decide on a military operation against the Baltic states, the forces based in Kaliningrad would play a crucial role: air cover, fire support, cutting off NATO's reinforcement routes. That is precisely why Alliance planners are investing in advanced air defense capabilities in these countries and in preparing the Suwalki corridor.

Latvia specifically warned of Russian preparations for hybrid attacks on NATO's eastern flank, including drone and missile strikes from Kaliningrad. These warnings, documented by Fox News on June 22, 2026, are not paranoia: they are grounded in concrete intelligence and observation of Russian military exercises. Baltic states' intelligence, operating in immediate contact with the Russian threat, is often the most reliable and precise on these subjects.

Kaliningrad is a geopolitical anomaly — a piece of Russia landlocked between Poland and Lithuania, separated from the Russian mainland. After the Cold War, many hoped this exclave would become a zone of economic cooperation. Instead, Putin turned it into a dagger pointed at the heart of the Alliance. It is the perfect symbol of the post-1991 peace dream that turned into a nightmare.

Strikes against Ukraine launched from Belarusian territory

Since the start of the war, Belarus has served as a transit territory and launch platform for Russian attacks against Ukraine. Cruise missiles launched from bombers based in Belarus have struck Ukrainian cities. Russian troops used Belarusian territory to attempt an advance on Kyiv in the first weeks of the invasion. Attack drones transited Belarusian airspace to strike Ukrainian targets.

This use of Belarusian territory has forced Ukraine to devote significant defensive resources to its northern border, lengthening its front line and dispersing its defenses. This is one of the strategic dividends Moscow extracted from its partnership with Lukashenko: an extension of the strategic depth of the attack against Ukraine, without engaging Russian forces directly from their own territory to the same degree.

The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus

A particularly concerning development has been Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory, announced by Putin in 2023. While the exact details of this deployment remain partially opaque, its strategic meaning is clear: Russia has extended its nuclear umbrella to Belarus and placed nuclear weapons closer to NATO's borders. It is a deliberate escalation designed to create uncertainty about the thresholds for a Western response to a possible Russian aggression in Eastern Europe.

NATO responded to this deployment by reinforcing its own nuclear planning and issuing declarations of deterrence maintenance. But the presence of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus shifts the strategic calculus for the nearest countries: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. It makes even more urgent the question of reinforced security guarantees for these countries.

Tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is Putin saying clearly: I am ready to play with nuclear fire to compensate for my long-term conventional inferiority. This nuclear rhetoric from Moscow has often been perceived by the West as a bluff not worth calling. I think that is the right approach — but not calling a bluff does not mean doing nothing. It means strengthening conventional defenses until resorting to nuclear weapons becomes even more irrational for Putin.

Airspace violations as instruments of pressure

Russia and its Belarusian allies have multiplied airspace violations and maritime incidents in the Baltic region. These incidents are not accidents or navigational errors: they are deliberate instruments of pressure and testing. They aim to measure the speed and intensity of NATO's response, to create uncertainty about allied rules of engagement, and to maintain a permanent state of tension that exhausts the defensive resources of the targeted countries.

Western intelligence services, according to The Guardian of June 26, 2026, suspect Russia of preparing a possible "provocation" in the Baltic states or in Poland. This assessment is not based on a single source but on the convergence of multiple signals: increased Russian military activities, exercises targeting precise strike scenarios toward the Baltic states, and intelligence on Russian internal discussions about escalation options in the NATO zone.

Hybrid attacks: between war and peace

Beyond conventional military provocations, Russia is conducting hybrid attacks against eastern flank countries: infrastructure sabotage, cyberattacks, massive disinformation, instrumentalization of migration flows at the Belarusian-Polish border, and intensified industrial espionage. These operations remain below the threshold that would trigger a NATO military response, but they have real, cumulative effects on the targeted societies.

Latvia specifically warned of hybrid attack preparations including drone and missile strikes. These warnings are documented and taken seriously by the allies. NATO's response to hybrid threats has improved — a Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats exists in Helsinki — but the diffuse nature and multiplicity of hybrid vectors make defense in this domain structurally more complex than conventional defense.

Hybrid warfare is frustrating to defend against because it exploits the gray zones between war and peace that our legal and political systems are not designed to manage. When a submarine cable breaks, is it Russian sabotage or an accident? When migrants gather at a border under the direction of Belarusian border guards, is it a humanitarian crisis or a military operation? These ambiguities are deliberate. They are part of the weapon.

The post-2020 repression: a gagged society

It is crucial to distinguish Lukashenko's regime from the Belarusian people. In 2020, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to protest the fraudulent elections that returned Lukashenko to power. This historic citizens' revolt was crushed by savage repression: mass arrests, torture documented by human rights organizations, forced exile of journalists and opponents, closure of independent media.

The Belarus of 2026 is a police state in which any expression of opposition to the war in Ukraine or to Lukashenko's regime is criminalized. Thousands of political prisoners rot in prisons. Civil society has been practically annihilated. But it is not dead: networks of passive resistance exist, information circulates despite censorship, and the Belarusian diaspora in exile maintains an active political and media presence that documents the regime's crimes.

Ukraine and Belarus: a solidarity that transcends politics

There is a remarkable solidarity between the Belarusian democratic movement in exile and Ukraine. Belarusians fight in volunteer units alongside Ukrainian forces. Belarusian organizations in exile provide logistical and media support to Ukraine. This solidarity rests on a shared understanding: a Ukrainian victory is also the future possibility of a liberated Belarus. A Ukrainian defeat closes those possibilities for a generation.

This human and political dimension is often absent from geostrategic analyses that treat Belarus purely as a military actor. But it is real and important: it means that supporting Ukraine is not only in Ukrainians' interest. It is also in the interest of the peoples of the entire region — Belarusians, Moldovans, Georgians — who live under the threat or dominance of Russia and its authoritarian allies.

I often think of the Belarusian protesters of 2020 who carried flowers facing police truncheons. They lost that battle. Lukashenko is still there. But those men and women were right. They understood that their freedom and national security were linked. What they did not foresee was how hesitant the West would be to support them.

The weaponized migration crisis

Since 2021, Belarus has weaponized migration flows as a hybrid weapon against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are lured to Belarus — often with false promises of easy passage into the EU — then directed by Belarusian border guards toward the Union's borders. This deliberate operation aims to create humanitarian and security crises at the border, divide European public opinion, and consume the security resources of the targeted countries.

Poland has built a physical barrier along its border with Belarus and maintains a reinforced military presence in the region. This response, criticized by some humanitarian organizations for its impact on legitimate asylum seekers, is pragmatically necessary in the face of a deliberate hybrid operation. Managing this file illustrates the difficulty of responding to hybrid threats: every response can be used against you on the communications front.

Infrastructure sabotage: a growing threat

Sabotage operations against critical infrastructure in eastern flank countries — submarine cables, pipelines, railways, power stations — have increased significantly since 2022. European counter-intelligence services have attributed several of these operations to Russian agents operating in Europe, sometimes recruited from citizens of third-party countries. These acts of sabotage remain below the threshold of an act of war, but they impose real costs on the targeted economies and create a calculated atmosphere of insecurity.

Responding to these sabotage threats involves strengthening counter-intelligence services, increasing the resilience of critical infrastructure (redundancies, backups, enhanced physical security), and closer cooperation between allied intelligence services. Both NATO and the EU have strengthened their information-sharing mechanisms on these threats, with concrete results in detecting and neutralizing several Russian operational cells.

Submarine cables cut, railways sabotaged, local politicians corrupted — that is the war Putin wages against Europe when he cannot fight it openly. It is a war that barely registers in the media but costs billions and mobilizes thousands of agents. Taking it seriously is not paranoia. It is clear-headedness.

Eastern flank reinforcements since 2022

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO has considerably reinforced its presence on the eastern flank. The enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battalions have been strengthened and put on higher alert. Rotations of American, British, French, and German forces have increased. Large-scale exercises have multiplied. Rapid reinforcement capabilities have been developed.

But these improvements, real as they are, remain insufficient according to the Alliance's own military planners' assessments. The transition from battalions to permanent brigades on the eastern flank — requested insistently by countries of the region — is underway but not yet complete. The air defense capabilities deployed still fall short of what would be needed to cover the entire eastern flank against Russian missile and drone threats from Kaliningrad and Belarus.

The specificity of the Suwalki Corridor: the Alliance's Achilles' heel

The Suwalki Corridor remains the most discussed vulnerability point on the eastern flank. Approximately 100 kilometers long, this strip of land between Poland and Lithuania is the only land connection between the Baltic states and the rest of NATO. Its severance — by Russian forces from Kaliningrad and Belarusian forces from the east — would isolate the three Baltic states from the rest of allied territory, leaving them to defend their own ground while waiting for a relief operation.

NATO devotes considerable planning and exercise resources to defending and relieving the Suwalki Corridor. Regular exercises simulate interdiction and breakthrough scenarios. The military presence in this corridor has been reinforced. But planners privately acknowledge that in the worst case, reinforcement timelines would remain tight. This is one of the strongest arguments for a permanently reinforced presence, rather than rotational forces, in this critical zone.

The Suwalki Corridor fascinates me as a symbol of a historic geopolitical mistake: in 1991, the West welcomed the Baltic states into NATO without securing their land connection to the rest of the Alliance. We hoped it would never matter. Today it does. And Poland and Lithuania live with a geographic vulnerability that should never have existed.

Western intelligence assessments of Russian intentions

The warnings published in June 2026 are serious and convergent. The Guardian of June 26, 2026 reports that Russian sources signal preparations for a possible "provocation" in the Baltic states or Poland. The Telegraph of June 27, 2026 cites Western officials suspecting a possible Russian attack on a NATO member state. These are not sensationalist publications: they are reporting serious assessments from leading intelligence services.

The significance of these warnings must however be nuanced. "Preparing a provocation" is not the same as "planning an invasion." Russia regularly tests its adversaries with calibrated provocations. Its immediate objective may be less to attack than to create fear, division, and uncertainty. But the line between provocation and inadvertent escalation can be crossed through miscalculation. That is precisely why the defense of the eastern flank must be sufficiently robust to discourage any temptation toward escalation from Moscow.

Russia's controlled escalation doctrine and its limits

Russian military doctrine, as Western analysts understand it, includes a concept of "controlled escalation" — the idea that Russia can deliberately and controllably increase pressure to impose its terms on an adversary without crossing the threshold of total war. This doctrine has worked to a point in the past — the 2014 Crimea crisis, the 2008 Georgia operations — because the West chose not to respond militarily.

The risk of applying this doctrine to NATO's eastern flank is real. A limited operation on the Suwalki Corridor, a "provocation" in the Baltic Sea, a large-scale hybrid operation in Lithuania — Russia might calculate that NATO would hesitate to trigger a major military response for an action "below the threshold." The robustness of NATO's forward presence and the clarity of its rules of engagement are the best deterrent against this kind of calculation.

Russia's controlled escalation doctrine is not infallible. It assumes the adversary will react rationally and proportionately. But when a NATO member state is attacked, Article 5 mechanisms come into play, and the response is not necessarily proportionate or predictable. That is deterrence in its purest form: uncertainty about the response is itself a deterrent factor.

Nordic accession as a direct response to Russian provocations

The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO in 2023–2024 was directly triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and by Russia's ongoing provocations. These two countries, which had maintained policies of neutrality or non-alignment for decades, concluded that this posture no longer protected them in the security environment created by Putin. It is one of the most significant strategic setbacks Putin has suffered since the start of the war.

Nordic accession transforms the strategic situation in the Baltic region profoundly. The Baltic Sea becomes almost entirely a "NATO lake." The Alliance's strategic depth on the northern flank is considerably increased. Finland, with its long shared border with Russia and its well-trained, well-equipped armed forces, is a prime addition to Alliance capabilities. And Sweden, with its leading-edge air and submarine capabilities, reinforces coverage of the Baltic and the North Atlantic.

Finland and the lessons of "total resistance"

Finland possesses something that many NATO countries lack: a doctrine of total resistance rooted in the historical experience of the Winter War of 1939–1940. This doctrine involves not only well-equipped armed forces, but the preparation of all of civil society to resist aggression — shelter preparedness, strategic reserves, government continuity plans, civilian training. It is a model that other eastern flank countries are seeking to replicate.

Finland's rapid mobilization capability, with a trained and equipped reserve army of approximately 900,000 people, is a strategic asset that NATO is now integrating into its eastern flank defense planning. It is also an example of what "investing in defense" really means: not just buying equipment, but building social and institutional resilience in the face of potential aggression.

Finland learned its lesson from Russia in 1939–1940, pushing back the Red Army with far inferior numbers. That lesson never left it. Forty years of neutrality did not erase Finnish awareness of the Russian threat. The West should listen more carefully to the Finns when they talk about Russia. They know it better than we do.

A regime dependent on Putin's survival

Lukashenko's position is intrinsically precarious: his regime would likely not survive a strategic defeat of Putin or a change of leadership in Moscow. Without the Russian support he received after 2020, he would probably have been overthrown. This existential dependence on Moscow explains his total alignment with Russian policy on Ukraine: he does not have the luxury of neutrality or ambiguity.

For the West and for the Belarusian democratic movement in exile, this dependence creates a hypothetical but real opportunity: if Russia were to suffer a major strategic setback or if a regime change in Moscow altered Russian policy toward Belarus, Lukashenko could quickly find himself without a safety net. This scenario remains hypothetical, but it justifies maintaining policies — notably sanctions against the Belarusian regime — that contribute to pressure on Lukashenko and to his eventual replacement by leadership more favorable to democracy and Belarusian neutrality.

Preparing the transition: supporting Belarusian civil society

The European Union and Western governments support Belarusian civil society in exile — independent media, opposition political organizations, activist networks. This support is not sufficiently visible and could be significantly amplified. Investing in the organizational and informational capabilities of the Belarusian opposition is investing in the possibility of a post-Lukashenko Belarus that chooses democracy and neutrality rather than permanent vassalization under Russia.

This scenario is not guaranteed. Lukashenko can survive a long time if Putin holds. But supporting Belarusian civil society is morally justified and strategically rational: it is a low-cost investment for a potentially very high return. It is the type of action that Western governments should pursue more consistently and more visibly.

Diplomacy means cultivating alternatives before they are available. The Belarusian democratic movement exists. It has recognized leaders, a popular base documented by the stolen elections of 2020, support in the diaspora. The West should treat it as a future government, not as a refugee group to welcome out of compassion.

Political prisoners by the thousands

Belarus under Lukashenko holds several thousand political prisoners — journalists, activists, protesters, political opponents, and even people imprisoned simply for liking a social media post or displaying national colors considered symbols of opposition. These individuals languish in conditions that human rights organizations describe as constituting inhuman and degrading treatment.

Among the most well-known prisoners is Maria Kolesnikova, musician and opposition figure, imprisoned since 2020, whose news has become rare, raising serious concerns for her health and safety. These prisoners are political hostages that the regime uses as bargaining chips and as instruments of terror. Their fate must remain a priority of Western diplomacy — not merely a footnote in negotiations on other subjects.

Belarusians fighting for Ukraine

In a poignant irony, some of Ukraine's most determined defenders are Belarusians — exiles or refugees — who have chosen to fight in Belarusian volunteer units integrated into Ukrainian forces. For them, this fight has a dual dimension: defending Ukraine against Russian aggression, and contributing to creating the conditions for their own country's future liberation. These fighters carry the hope of a free Belarus as much as that of a victorious Ukraine.

Their commitment reveals something important about the nature of this conflict: beyond the war between states, there is a struggle between an authoritarian principle of political organization — the Russian empire and its vassals — and a democratic principle that the peoples of the region are defending with their lives. This framing is truer than the simple "Ukraine vs Russia" lens. It is a fight for the soul of an entire region.

Belarusians fighting for Ukraine because it is also their fight for their own freedom. That is an image that should resonate in every Western chancellery wondering whether support for Ukraine is worth the investment. The answer is in these Belarusian fighters: yes, it is worth it. Because this is not only a territorial war. It is a war of values.

The current sanctions regime and its limits

The European Union and the United States have imposed significant economic sanctions against Lukashenko's regime since 2020. These sanctions cover key sectors of the Belarusian economy, notably potash exports — one of the country's primary revenue sources — and financial relations with entities close to the regime. They have had a real economic impact on Belarus, whose economic growth has been significantly reduced.

But Belarusian sanctions face the same challenge as Russian sanctions: they can be partially circumvented through Russian support. Russia has effectively been subsidizing the Belarusian economy since 2020, allowing it to absorb part of the shock of Western sanctions. This means the maximum impact of sanctions on Belarus is conditioned on the effect of sanctions on Russia itself — an interdependence of the two sanctions regimes that must be managed coherently.

What more targeted sanctions could accomplish

More precisely targeted sanctions on individuals and entities directly involved in repression and in military cooperation with Russia could have real behavioral effects on Belarusian ruling circles. These circles are not monolithic: there are internal tensions, individuals who would prefer a more balanced relationship with the West if paths toward normalization were opened. Precisely targeting the most compromised while signaling openness to those who might evolve is a more sophisticated — and potentially more effective — strategy than a uniform sanctions regime.

This differentiated approach is politically difficult to implement — it is always easier to maintain a monolithic position than to draw distinctions — but it could produce more durable results. Supporting moderate Belarusian voices, even inside the system, is a component of a more sophisticated strategy that the West has not yet fully explored.

I have no magic recipe for Belarus. The situation is difficult, the geography constraining, the Russian dependence deep. But I refuse the fatalism that says nothing can be done. Supporting civil society, targeting sanctions precisely, maintaining a perspective of conditional normalization — that is concrete, achievable, and more useful than pretending Belarus is condemned to be a Russian satellite for eternity.

Tikhanovskaya and the government-in-exile: legitimacy and limits

Since 2020, Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya and the Belarusian government-in-exile have maintained a remarkable international presence despite having no territory. Recognized diplomatically by several Western countries and by the European Parliament, they represent a credible alternative to Lukashenko's regime — but an alternative with no means of direct action on the domestic situation as long as the regime maintains its police and military control with Russian backing. This frustration runs deep: having legitimacy without power, having international support without the capacity to use it.

The importance of the Belarusian government-in-exile must not be underestimated. It keeps alive the idea that a free and sovereign Belarus is possible. It documents human rights violations for future judicial proceedings. It maintains networks with clandestine Belarusian civil society. And it reminds the West that behind Lukashenko's regime stands a people who voted massively for change in 2020 and who continue to pay the price of that democratic aspiration. Failing to actively support them would be a betrayal of the values the West claims to defend.

What the West must do differently for Belarus

Western policy toward Belarus suffers from a structural flaw: it reacts to events rather than anticipating and acting strategically. The sanctions imposed after the 2020 repression and after the use of Belarus as an attack base in 2022 sent an important moral signal, but they did not change Lukashenko's behavior. For sanctions to work as a behavior-change tool rather than mere symbolic punishment, they must be coupled with clear incentives — what Lukashenko can hope for if his behavior changes — and with mechanisms for pressuring the elites around him.

More fundamentally, the West must treat the Belarusian question as an element of the overall strategy toward Russia rather than as a separate file. Lukashenko draws his political survival from his usefulness to Putin. The more Russia is under economic and military pressure, the fewer resources it has to keep the Belarusian regime afloat. Sanctions and military support for Ukraine are therefore also, indirectly, tools of Belarus policy. This strategic coherence is often absent from Western discourse on the region.

Lukashenko is probably aware he signed a pact with the devil. His dependence on Moscow leaves him no room for maneuver — he can neither negotiate with the West, nor distance himself from Putin, nor even imagine an exit from the crisis that does not pass through total humiliation. In a twisted sense, he is as much a prisoner of his regime as the Belarusian people are prisoners of him. That excuses nothing. But it explains why the post-Lukashenko era will be just as complicated as the post-Putin one.

Escalation scenarios that Belarus would enable

Western military analysts consider Belarus a potential escalation vector in three main scenarios. The first: a direct Russian attack on a NATO member state — notably Poland or the Baltic states — passing through Belarusian territory, allowing Moscow to extend its attack lines and threaten the "Suwalki Corridor" linking Poland to Lithuania. The second: use of Belarusian territory to deploy intermediate-range missile systems targeting European capitals. The third: an intensification of hybrid operations — cyberattacks, infrastructure sabotage — coordinated from Belarusian territory.

These scenarios are not certainties — they are risks that NATO military planners must anticipate. The presence of Russian Iskander and S-400 systems in Belarus, confirmed by various military sources, is not an incidental fact: it is an operational capability deployed within attack distance of capitals and military bases in Central Europe. NATO's defense strategy on the eastern flank must integrate this reality as a baseline assumption, not as a worst-case scenario.

Joint NATO-Poland preparation facing the Belarusian challenge

Poland is the country most directly exposed to the threat represented by Belarus — both through the shared border and through proximity to the Suwalki Corridor. In response, Poland has massively increased its defense spending — reaching and exceeding 4% of GDP — and developed close operational cooperation with NATO troops stationed on its territory. Joint exercises, shared intelligence, and coordinated operational plans between Warsaw and NATO commands make Poland one of the eastern flank's best-prepared pillars.

This Polish preparedness is exemplary and should inspire other NATO members. It demonstrates that it is possible to transform an immediate geographic threat into credible defensive capability — provided there is the political will and the resources to invest seriously. But Poland's preparedness alone is not enough if other eastern flank members — the Baltic states, Hungary to a lesser degree, Romania — do not reach the same level of operational readiness. NATO's defense chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Belarus is the mirror of what diplomatic cowardice truly costs. In 2020, the West condemned Lukashenko's repression without toppling him, without cutting his finances, without isolating him sufficiently to prevent him from becoming an attack platform against Ukraine two years later. Now it is too late — every attempt to pressure Minsk reinforces his dependence on Moscow and, by ricochet, reinforces Moscow. The lesson for the future: tyrants do not fall on their own. You have to choose the right moment to push.

2020: when the West did not respond strongly enough

History will record that the West did not respond with the necessary force to the stolen elections of 2020 and to the mass repression of the Belarusian democratic movement. Sanctions were imposed, yes. Declarations were made. But a stronger, more coordinated, more determined response might have changed Lukashenko's calculation of the cost of his repression and the value of alignment with Putin. We cannot know that with certainty. But inaction has its own consequences.

The Belarus of 2026 — rear base for the Russian aggressor, territory traversed by missiles killing Ukrainian civilians, hub of hybrid provocations against NATO countries — is partly the product of Western political choices that were insufficiently determined in 2020–2021. This lesson must inform our current decisions on Ukraine, on Belarus, and on every future crisis where an early response can still make a difference.

Ukraine holds the line — also for Belarus

Every day that Ukraine resists Russian aggression is also one more day for the Belarusian democratic movement in exile to consolidate its capabilities, maintain its visibility, and prepare for the future. A victorious Ukraine opens possibilities for a free Belarus. A defeated Ukraine closes those possibilities for a generation. Zelensky knows that. The Belarusians in exile know it. It is up to the West to understand it and act accordingly.

The Russian threat to the eastern flank passes through Belarus. The response to this threat passes through support for Ukraine, through the strengthening of NATO's eastern flank, and through the preservation of a democratic prospect for the Belarusian people. It is a strategic triangle that we do not have the luxury of treating separately.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

My analysis of Belarus is probably more normative than analytical — I am viscerally convinced that the West missed an opportunity in 2020–2021 and that we are paying the consequences. This conviction influences my reading of events. An analyst who places greater value on regional stability and escalation risks might read the same situation differently, arguing that Western caution avoided direct confrontation with Moscow. This debate is legitimate. I clearly choose one of the camps.