"If there is any change in Belarus, it is because the Kremlin will have disconnected Lukashenko"

Arrests of "Russian mercenaries", imprecations and threats ... The previously privileged relationship between Russia and Belarus is failing. It is because President Alexander Loukachenko, often nicknamed the "last dictator of Europe", re-elected Sunday with more than 80% of the vote, spent part of his electoral campaign waving the red rag of vassalization by Russia.

Confronted with the emergence of the candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, an English teacher by training, who knew how to mobilize the crowds, Alexandre Lukashenko is certain: the Kremlin and its "puppeteers" are conspiring with its detractors to bring it down.

To listen to the autocrat, his government would be the last bulwark against Russia. "We will not abandon the country to you. Independence is expensive, but it is worth the cost."

"Threatened by the rise of the opposition"

According to Alexander Lukashenko, his government is scrambling to foil this alleged Russian plot. Last June, he jailed the opponent Viktor Babaryko, former head of a subsidiary of the Russian giant Gazprom. More impressively, in July, he arrested 33 Russians from the Wagner group, presented as mercenaries in the pay of the Kremlin who were instructed to carry out an armed coup in Minsk.

"These 33 arrests were the object of a total instrumentalization on the part of the president who considered the arrival of these people as an attempt to interfere. This allowed him to unroll his rhetoric on Russia which wants to nibble on independence Belarusian ", explains Paul Gogo, France 24 correspondent in Russia. "During this arrest, the president already felt threatened by the growing power of the opposition. He therefore played this card."

At the beginning of August, the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy Maria Zakharova seemed to draw a red line with the ally of always: if she insisted on the "solid foundations" of the Russian-Belorussian friendship which could not be threatened by "one-off and cyclical interests", she also claimed that the fate of the 33 Russians arrested for a hypothetical plot was closely watched. "We will not let anything bad happen to them," she warned, calling "a spectacle" the accusations against them of having instigated an armed plot with the Belarusian opposition.

A country on Russian drip

Alexander Lukashenko, multiplying diatribes with a warrior accent, thus seems ready to mark the end of his privileged relationship with Russia, despite very deep economic, military and security integration.

Indeed, Russia and Belarus had until then had close relations. On paper, they even form a supranational entity within the framework of the "State of the Union". According to this 1999 treaty, the two countries must gradually tend towards full integration in all areas in "respect for their respective sovereignty".

Belarus has firmly established itself in Russia's sphere of influence since the collapse of the Soviet Union, unlike the diplomatic paths taken by Ukraine or Georgia. Russia represents half of the country's foreign trade and provides 60% of its imports, including all of its gas and oil.

Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko then seemed to have a cordial personal relationship. During a visit to the Kremlin at the end of 2018, the Belarusian president even offered his counterpart four bags of potatoes "from the presidential gardens", even if it meant fueling a recurring joke in Russia according to which Belarus only produced potatoes. And in 2019, the two men showed up together at a hockey game in Sochi.

However, since the end of 2019 and the failure of talks on preferential prices for Russian hydrocarbons sold to Belarus, tensions have only increased. And Alexander Lukashenko went crescendo in his attacks against Vladimir Putin's Russia, accusing him of wanting to dilute the sovereignty of his country, even to take control of it. A mistrust vis-à-vis the Russian aspirations which arose in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.

Russia lets it go

"Lukashenko has declared a point of no return, relations between the two countries have gone from fraternal and strategic to ordinary and utilitarian," Arseni Sivitsky, director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Minsk, told AFP.

For the moment, Moscow lets the provocations flow. Vladimir Putin was one of only two presidents to send a "congratulatory telegram" to his Belarusian counterpart after his re-election. "I count on the fact that your action as head of state will allow the future development of mutually beneficial Russian-Belarusian relations," wrote the Russian president.

"Moscow is watching without intervening. It is in its interest", explains Paul Gogo. "But Vladimir Poutine prefers to keep an eye on the opponents" who could constitute so many alternatives.

“Several scenarios are possible, but one thing must be understood: if things change in Belarus, it is because the Kremlin will have disconnected Lukashenko. Certainly Putin congratulated Lukashenko but it was a formality: it is a divorce which is in progress. unfolding ", explains Oleg Kobtzeff, specialist in Russia at the American University of Paris, on France 24." It remains to be seen whether the three opponents are supported by the Kremlin. Maybe so, maybe no."

However, an analyst interviewed by Le Monde believes that Vladimir Poutine would be reluctant to get rid of Lukashenko. If he did not appreciate his rants, he would prefer a known problem to something unpredictable.

'Vladimir Putin fears scenarios that could turn against him,' explains Andrei Kortunov, director of the Russian Council, a Russian think tank on international issues. "The worst-case scenario is a revolution like Maidan in Ukraine. It would not only be the loss of an ally but also a political blow: if a change of power through the street proves possible in Belarus, a brother country to the post-Soviet mentality, that would become possible in Russia. A real threat for Vladimir Putin, whose elections are hardly cleaner than those of Alexander Lukashenko. "

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