MOSCOW (Reuters) – Belarus’s political crisis presents a challenge to foreign policy for President Vladimir Putin, who wants to keep the country firmly in Moscow’s control, and there are early signs that it is also can cause problems for him at home.
PHOTO PHOTO: European Games of 2019 – Closing Ceremony – Dinamo Stadium, Minsk, Belarus – June 30, 2019. President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko speak in the stands during the closing ceremony REUTERS / Vasily Fedosenko / File Photo
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered police to end 10 days of protests in the capital, Minsk, on Wednesday following his claim of a landslide victory in an election on August 9. The opposition says the vote was rigged.
Events in Belarus cry out in Russian politics.
Some protesters against the Kremlin in the far east of Russia, who have been demonstrating for six weeks against what they see as Putin’s abuse of a local political crisis there, have begun to sing “Long live Belarus!” in support of the Protestants in Minsk, 9,000 km (5,590 miles) to the west.
The protests in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk are unusual by Russian standards for their length and scale.
A hand-drawn poster read: “Khabarovsk is with you, Belarus.”
The man who held it, who did not give his name, said that Belarusians and Russians were both out of patience with what he called unjust political systems.
“I see parallels between Belarus and Khabarovsk,” the man told Current Time TV. “Not because we are all Protestants, but because we are united by the same thing: the right to vote and to participate in fair elections.”
Supporters of leading Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in Moscow said they were also closely watching developments in Minsk and trying to learn lessons for what they expect to eventually unfold in Russia.
Culturally, politically and economically, Belarus is the former Soviet republic with the closest ties to Russia, including a treaty proclaiming a “union state” of the two countries with a Soviet-style red flag.
However, Putin is not Lukashenko, and there are no serious threats to his horizon. But that closeness and the fact that the two countries share a common language – Russian – means that events in Belarus are beginning to influence Russia’s own political landscape.
The much larger Russia and its more socially divided society make a repeat of the Belarusian scenario for now unlikely, said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“UNCOMFORTABLE” FOR PUTIN
But the spectacle of tens of thousands of Russian speakers demonstrating against an autocratic leader who, like Putin has been in power for more than two decades, would be unsettling for the Russian leader, he said.
“Here (in Belarus) is an example of Russian civil society,” Kolesenikov said. “It simply came to our notice then. For him, the Belarusian protests should not succeed, because it would be uncomfortable for him to see a protest success story in a neighboring ‘brotherly’ state. ”
Putin has spoken to Lukashenko several times since the crisis began, telling him that Russia will help militarily if needed, a moment the Kremlin believes has not yet come.
Putin’s opponents have struggled for years to gain influence in Russia’s tightly controlled system, but are now drawing inspiration from the protests in Belarus.
Ahead of regional elections in which 40 million voters will vote next month, veteran anti-Kremlin activist Navalny is using Belarus to try to persuade Russians to support candidates he supports.
In an August 14 appearance on his YouTube channel, Navalny spoke enthusiastically about how successful strikes by key workers in Belarus had forced authorities to start talking to Protestants.
Video clips of Belarusian workers claiming to have voted in favor of the opposition were labeled “Russia of the future”.
One of his aides, Leonid Volkov, said he and fellow activists were monitoring Belarusian tactics.
“We are careful Lukashenko’s attempt to disable the Internet,” Volkov wrote on Twitter. “It’s really important, because without a doubt the same things are waiting for us in Russia.”
Activists believe they may face a Belarusian scenario if Putin runs for re-election in 2024 after successfully changing the constitution to run for president twice again.
“In present-day Belarus, we can see ourselves in the very future,” said opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov.
“The opposition candidate gets 80% and the dictator has a hard time getting 10%, but the election commission just exchanges the results.”
There are signs that the Kremlin is living after the potential threat.
State-backed media, after first portraying the Belarusian opposition in a sympathetic light, have begun to change tack, talk of foreign involvement, a proven long-standing Polish interest in dominating the region, and ‘colored revolutions’ – a reference to previous uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine.
The spectacle of hundreds of Belarusians picking up their country’s embassy in central Moscow was also too much for the Russian authorities, who knew them from the streets and dumped their placards and protest materials in neighborhood bins.
Additional Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Edited by Gareth Jones
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