Bloomberg: a strong ruler of Belarus is balanced around Putin, the EU and the war in Ukraine

“I am no longer the last dictator of Europe. There are dictators a little worse than me, aren't there? I have already become the lesser of two evils,” Alexander Lukashenko said with a laugh in an interview with Bloomberg. Journalists Alexander Kudritsky and Ryan Chilcote believe that in the interview he appeared as “a ruler who is engaged in a complex balancing act: trying to keep his country under tight control, while at the same time carefully balancing between its neighbors - assertive Russia, war-torn Ukraine, and the European Union.”

Lukashenko is “Putin’s closest ally, and Putin is his closest ally. But in some of Lukashenko’s phrases there was a challenge to Putin, in others there was appeasement. Lukashenko said the US and its allies are wrong to believe Putin is seeking to recreate an empire. But he added that Putin and Russia react emotionally to open challenges, and “one should be careful around Russia,” the authors write.

Lukashenko noted: “In Russian political circles there are many who think like imperialists; they consider Belarus simply a northwestern province.” He stated: “We will not be some northwestern province, just as we will never enter into conflicts with Russia.”

According to the authors, this position seems to strengthen Lukashenko’s popularity on the eve of the presidential election. The opposition is holding on softly: for example, Vladimir Neklyaev advised in an interview to avoid active protest actions in order not to give Russia a pretext for intervention.

According to the publication, now the main problem for Lukashenko is the state of the economy. “The sanctions imposed by the West against Russia seriously affect us,” he noted. Other negative factors are the outflow of capital from Russia, a decrease in oil revenues and a collapse in demand for Belarusian goods.

However, Lukashenko assured that this year his country will fully repay its foreign debt. Perhaps, Minsk will also place new Eurobonds, refinance its debt to Russia and try to borrow up to 2 billion dollars from the IMF.

How does Lukashenko assess the situation in Ukraine? “He called it alarming that the United States was not directly involved in the negotiations and asked the United States to immediately join the peace process,” the article said. Lukashenko fears that if the current truce falls through, things will get worse: “All this could end in war.”