A Brief History
On April 11, 2011, an explosion rocked the Kastryčnickaja station of the Minsk Metro in the capital city of the country of Belarus. Sadly, 15 people were killed and over 200 others were wounded. Although a pair of alleged perpetrators were convicted and executed for the crime, suspicion about the actual motive for the bombing remains about whether or not the Belarusian government of President Alexander Lukashenko conducted a “false flag” operation itself in order to strengthen its hand against virulent opposition forces. In April of 2022, the otherwise non-descript country of Belarus has been in the news as an ally of Vladimir Putin’s Russia in his invasion of Ukraine. Who are the Belarusians?
Digging Deeper
A country in Easter Europe that borders Russia, Poland and Ukraine, as well as Latvia and Lithuania, Belarus, previously known as Byelorussia, is a land of just over 80,00 square miles (ranking 84th in the world in area) and a population of less than 10 million. Ethnically, the Belarusians are akin to Russians, Poles and Ukrainians, and most closely identify with the Russians. Belarusians are of the East Slavic group and are also related to the Balts (the people of the Baltic region). Something over half of Belarusians claim to be Christians, mostly of the Eastern Orthodox variety, and the major minority groups include Russians (7.5%), Poles (3.1%) and Ukrainians (1.7%). Of the 9.5 million ethnic Belarusians worldwide, about 8 million reside within the nation of Belarus.
While European borders, especially in the region that includes Belarus, have changed over the centuries, Belarus has mostly been a part of the Russian Empire or the USSR since 1791, finally getting independent status after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Belarus is neither a wealthy country nor terribly impoverished, though trending toward the lower half, with a Nominal GDP of $57.708 billion that ranks it 75th in the world, and a per capita Nominal GDP of $6,133 which ranks 84th in the world.
A landlocked country, Belarus has no navy, though it does have an active military force of about 62,00 backed up by about 344,000 reserves. Consisting mostly of conscripts, the Belarusian military is modest by most standards. Notable weapons fielded by Belarus include about 600 Soviet era tanks and over 1200 Soviet era armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles. The Air Force of Belarus boasts only about 100 fighter and attack aircraft and about 60 helicopters, with only 2 transport aircraft and a handful of trainer planes.
Their leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has been the President of Belarus since 1994 when that office was first established, making him the one and only man to hold that office. Referring to himself as “the last dictator in Europe,” Lukashenko certainly deserves the description as a dictator for the past nearly 3 decades. Lukashenko, seen as a protégé and even as a puppet of Vladimir Putin, had previously been a Soviet government and military operative and retains much of the veneer of the old Soviet style of government, including officially making the Russian language equal to the Belarusian language. Lukashenko has ruthlessly crushed all opposition during his tenure as Belarusian strong man and has closely aligned his country with Russia. As his name would imply, Lukashenko is of ethnic Ukrainian heritage, his paternal grandfather hailing from the Ukraine.
During the Russian invasion of the Ukraine (February-April of 2022 and beyond), Belarus allowed the Russian military to stage within Belarus and launch attacks into Ukraine from Belarusian territory. Unconfirmed reports that Russia expected the armed forces of Belarus to take an active part in the invasion of Ukraine have not been fulfilled in fact, with Belarus keeping their armed forces out of direct combat (as of April 9, 2022). At this point with the war going wrong for Russia and sanctions leveled against both Russia and Belarus (against Belarus for prior human rights violations) it seems unlikely that Belarus will commit to the fighting in Ukraine.
The future of Belarus seems to be tied to the fortunes of its strongman, President Alexander Lukashenko and his penchant for alliance with Russia leading to poorer relations with other European countries. Perhaps when Lukashenko is out of office Belarus can take its place among more democratic countries, or at least we hope so!
Question for students (and subscribers): Should Ukrainian armed forces conduct attacks against Belarusian miiltary targets in response to Belarusian support of the Russian invasion? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Roberts, Nigel. Belarus (Bradt Travel Guides). Bradt Travel Guides, 2018.
Wilson, Andrew. Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship. Yale University Press, 2021.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Alaexis of flowers near the Belarusian Embassy, Moscow, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
