Why Turmoil in Belarus Is Spilling Over Its Borders

For 27 years, President Alexander Lukashenko has held onto power in Belarus, a former Soviet republic, using increasingly repressive methods. His critics and opponents have gotten louder, and more prominent, since Lukashenko claimed a sixth term following a disputed election in August 2020. Mass arrests, the forced grounding of a European Union flight and an Olympic sprinter fleeing the team to seek asylum in Poland have all focused international attention on the simmering crisis on the EU’s border.

Discontent with Lukashenko, in office since Belarus’s first presidential election as an independent republic in 1994, has simmered for years as the state-dominated economy stagnated. Called “Europe’s last dictator,” Lukashenko has received financial and political support from Russia and repeatedly repressed political dissent. Unrest in the East European country of 9.3 million people, sandwiched between Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Russia, intensified with the coronavirus outbreak, after the president rejected lockdown measures to slow the epidemic and dismissed health fears.