Belarus: Why did Lukashenko escape unscathed?

Stand: 12:38 am | Reading time: 3 minutes

WRussian ruler Alexander Lukashenko will not appear on the EU sanctions list, according to information from WELT. Germany, in particular, has campaigned for it, with the support of France and Italy.

Berlin and Paris argued internally that channels of communication with Lukashenko must be kept open in all circumstances. A sanction would prevent this. Several member states, mainly from the Baltic countries and Poland, disagreed and requested that Lukashenko’s name be included on the EU sanctions list.

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The official list will be published next week or the following week, EU diplomats said. “The talks are extremely difficult, as all the lists must be approved by all member states in a court of law and unanimously,” said a senior EU diplomat. Other listings are not excluded at a later time.

After a special meeting on August 14, the EU foreign ministers announced that they would impose punitive measures against those responsible for the police and the falsification of the presidential elections in Belarus. At that time it was still open if Lukashenko himself would be there. After intensive consultations, it is now clear that the assets of between 16 and 19 people will be blocked in the EU and will no longer be allowed to enter the territory of the European Union.

Lukashenko has already been on a sanctions list once

A formal vote on the inclusion of Lukashenko in the EU has not yet taken place, according to diplomatic circles. Previous informal talks have been “clear”: the EU allows the Minsk dictator to get away with it.

This is even more astonishing since Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus autocratically for 26 years, along with 170 other Belarusians were already on a European sanctions list from 2011 to 2016. The punitive measures at the time were a reaction to manipulation. and arbitrary arrests during the presidential elections of December 2010.

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The Baltic states, on the other hand, did not want to wait for the decision in Brussels this time and a few days ago they announced unilateral sanctions against Lukashenko and 29 other representatives of the regime. Employees of the presidential administration, the central electoral commission, the interior and justice ministries and the security authorities are affected by the entry ban.

The protests against Lukashenko continued on Thursday. The self-proclaimed president, who is no longer recognized by the EU, has meanwhile further stabilized his power apparatus. Not only did he trust the new staff, but he also gave new positions to his confidants. Iwan Tertel is the new head of the KGB secret service. He was previously a member of the government’s state control committee, replacing Valery Wakultschik at the head of the dreaded secret service. Wakultschik, in turn, will now become Secretary of State of the Security Council.

The background to the ongoing protests is the presidential election on August 9. Lukashenko had been declared the winner with 80.1 percent of the votes. The opposition, however, considers Svetlana Tichanowskaya to be the real winner. The EU does not officially take this position, although from Brussels’ point of view, the politician is said to have received significantly more votes than incumbent Lukashenko.

The vote was internationally condemned for being grossly falsified. The bloody crackdown on peaceful protests and the arrest of thousands of protesters were also the subject of fierce international criticism. Moscow recently assured Lukashenko that, in the event of an escalation, it would send security forces to Belarus to support him. To what extent Russian President Vladimir Putin is really willing to keep Lukashenko in office permanently is unclear from Brussels’ perspective.

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Protests in Belarus