Putin’s Favorite Copycat Gears Up in Panicked Wartime Frenzy

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has gotten himself into a bit of a sticky mess with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine—and now he’s turning to his military in a frantic effort to clean it up.

In the past few days Lukashenko and his advisers have made a flurry of announcements about plans to bolster the Belarusian military. First, they announced Belarus was creating a people’s militia to give a boost to the country’s armed forces. Then they announced both a new military unit on the country’s southern border with Ukraine and new military mobilizations exercises.

The former Soviet republic’s announcements sound oddly aligned with the same kinds of “drill” announcements the Kremlin made just before the invasion of Ukraine this February, Belarusian and military analysts have suggested.

Already, combat readiness drills are underway—with a focus on transitioning Belarus from peacetime to war, according to the Belarusian Telegraph Agency.

The Belarusian opposition views Belarus’ latest military announcements as potential posturing towards invading Ukraine, Valery Kavaleuski, a foreign affairs representative for Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told The Daily Beast.

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“Lukashenko is playing the same game in Belarus. He is trying to get Ukrainians—and Belarusians, too—accustomed to the idea of these exercises,” Kavaleuski told The Daily Beast. “I’m afraid that this might mean that he’s moving closer to the decision to send these Belarusian troops to Ukraine anyway.”

The military steps are likely an indication that, as the war in Ukraine enters a state of attrition, Putin is calling up Lukashenko for favors due, according to Scott Rauland, the former chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, Belarus.

“The only explanation for him taking whatever action has been taken or that is being contemplated is that he is under duress from Putin to demonstrate loyalty and that he is probably expecting additional… financial support from the Kremlin,” said Rauland, who also previously served as an intelligence analyst at the State Department.

The pressures from Putin’s battlefield losses might be forcing Russia into squeezing Lukashenko more, according to Kenneth Yalowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Belarus.

“My guess is he’s under a lot of pressure right now from the Russians. The Russians are losing people, they’re having a very hard time, the offensive in Kyiv failed,” Yalowitz said. “There’s probably a lot of pressure on Belarus to up his support.”

Lukashenko’s relationship with Putin has long been focused on more closely integrating the two nations, especially after Putin supported Lukashenko despite criticism of Lukashenko’s crackdown on dissidents and allegations he rigged the election in 2020.

It’s not the first time this year that Lukashenko has shown signs that he’s at Putin’s beck and call. Early on, Lukashenko welcomed Putin’s forces for military exercises in Belarus before the Russian invasion.

It could also have something to do with Russian forces having shifted their fight eastward in Ukraine—further away from Belarus. Lukashenko might be feeling a little less relevant to Putin’s aims and trying to get back in the mix, Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, told The Daily Beast.

“The more likely scenario is that… he’s going to demonstrate… capability,” Hodges told The Daily Beast of Lukashenko’s latest announcements.

Lukashenko “sees that the Russians have shifted their effort much further to the east,” Hodges said. “So now it’s kind of demonstrating, ‘Yes, we have capability, too.’”

And Lukashenko “can be brutish, can be very, very difficult to deal with—and can be very insecure,” added Yalowitz, the former U.S. ambassador in Minsk.

As Putin’s logistics and war efforts have flagged in Ukraine, Lukashenko has made other attempts to become more relevant to Russia. He made a show of trying to guilt-trip other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia’s version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to step up their support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, just last month.

The State Department says it’s monitoring Belarus’ latest bellicose moves. “We continue to monitor these developments closely,” a spokesperson said, adding that the Biden administration continues to view Lukashenko as aligned with Putin. “Until the Lukashenko regime ends its support for Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, the United States will continue to take all appropriate actions to disrupt Belarus’s military and financial capabilities.”

But there may be some ulterior motive lying at the foundation of Lukashenko’s military moves. Lukashenko has long had an independent streak, and at times has worked to distance himself from Russia, Rauland told The Daily Beast.

And while Russia could be calling in a favor from Belarus or Lukashenko could be working to prove his loyalty to Putin, Lukashenko’s military posturing might also be an indication he is growing increasingly weary of Putin’s belligerent decisions about Ukraine.

And however involved Lukashenko has been in helping Putin with his designs on Ukraine, Lukashenko has, in recent days, started expressing some distress at the war. He’s sought to signal that he thinks Western nations ought to distinguish between Belarus and Russia. He’s tried hosting peace talks and outright stating that he has been against war. Just last month he spoke out against how Putin’s war has “dragged on.”

Russia’s partnership with Belarus has been rooted in the unique “union state” relationship Belarus and Russia share, an agreement focused on further integrating the two countries. The relationship has culminated in several programs focused on integrating the countries’ taxation, banking, military, and other sectors through the years.

But in practice, the relationship has meant that Putin takes steps to sweep Lukashenko further under his spell—and the war in Ukraine has been no exception.

“Every time Putin wants to turn the screws a little tighter… it’s always about further integration of the union state,” Rauland told The Daily Beast. “The Russian side sees it as a chance to kind of pull Belarus fully into their orbit and maybe have it become part of Russia.”

But Lukashenko is likely “cynical” about the union state, Rauland said.

“His sympathies lie with the Soviet Union and then Russia,” Yalowitz added. “But his relationship with the Russians over 20 years has been uneven. There are periods when they have gotten tired of him, and he also of them.”

The Belarusian leader could be reading the tea leaves, seeing that Putin has fallen out of favor on the world stage, and interested in pivoting to the west.

“The Russian Federation is gonna collapse in some way within the next five years,” Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, predicted. “What he’s done for 20 years is posture and play this game of trying to maintain some degree of flexibility,” Hodges said of Lukashenko.

“He's definitely looking into the future with concern,” Kavaleuski, the adviser to Tsikhanouskaya, told The Daily Beast.

But in many ways, Lukashenko’s goose is already cooked. Even if he wanted to convince the West one day that he wanted to pivot away from Russia, his human rights record and his support for Putin’s war in Ukraine might have him too far gone.

“When Putin falls—and this is a matter of time as we see from how the war is going—then Lukashenko will be in big trouble,” Kavaleuski told The Daily Beast.

Senior Biden administration officials have been warning for months that it hasn’t been clear where Lukashenko’s power ends and where Russia’s begins within Belarus itself.

“Lukashenko is largely in control of the leaders of his government,” one senior State Department official told reporters earlier this year in a call. “The question is where do their authorities at this point end, and where do the Kremlin’s begin?”