Belarus After Lukashenko: A European Strategy for Isolation of Russia

The longevity of Alyaksandr Lukashenko’s rule has led many observers to assume that Belarus is immoveable, condemned by geography and political inertia to serve indefinitely as Russia’s western glacis. Yet the mortality of autocrats always forces recalibration. Whether Lukashenko dies in office, is incapacitated, or removed by internal pressures, the moment of transition will invite a rare strategic opening. Europe will then face a question that has shaped many of her successes in the post-Cold War era: how to bring a vulnerable state into a democratic and secure orbit without precipitating war, and without allowing Russia to re-establish her hegemony through coercive or covert means.

Belarus has never been culturally or historically alien to Europe. Her Catholic minority, her preserved urban architecture, her nineteenth-century intelligentsia and her vibrant diaspora all signal a country whose identity is not exclusively Slavic-imperial but deeply intertwined with Polish-Lithuanian and Baltic traditions. The Lukashenko era obscured these linkages by enforcing political conformity, centralised economics and a security apparatus beholden to Moscow. However beneath that layer lies a vibrant society capable of transformation, as the mass demonstrations of 2020 revealed. The European Union’s challenge will therefore not be to impose an alien orientation, but to seize a moment when a suppressed European identity briefly re-emerges and then to steward it safely.

A post-Lukashenko transition will unfold under conditions of uncertainty. Russia will seek to dominate succession politics. The Kremlin’s strategic interest is straightforward: without Belarus, Russia ceases to be a continental power with direct military access to the heart of Europe. Belarusian territory enables the northern prong of any hypothetical assault upon Ukraine, it gives Russia proximity to the Suwałki corridor to Poland, and it offers strategic depth for missile deployments that threaten Poland and the Baltic States. Moscow will therefore attempt to guarantee that whichever figure inherits power in Minsk remains dependent. Europe’s aim must be precisely the reverse.

A prudent Western strategy would operate on three simultaneous tracks: political stabilisation, economic redirection and calibrated security assistance. Political stabilisation requires that Europe avoid premature declarations of victory. Instead, the European Union should prepare a contact group of member states with experience in democratic transitions: Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, each possessing linguistic, historical or technical familiarity with Belarus. This group’s task would be to assist a transitional authority in managing elections, reforming the constitution and supervising the dissolution or downsizing of the internal security forces most implicated in repression. The symbolism is essential: Belarus must see the European project as a practical mechanism for restoring legitimate government, not as a distant moral lecture.

Economic redirection will prove equally critical. Belarus’s economy is distorted by state ownership, subsidised energy from Russia and restricted foreign investment. Upon a political opening, Europe could offer a stabilisation fund conditional upon transparent privatisation, energy diversification and alignment with European regulatory norms. The prospect of preferential access to the single market would help sway industrial managers and regional elites, many of whom currently support Moscow only because no credible alternative exists. By creating realistic economic incentives, Europe would weaken the gravitational pull of Russia’s subsidised model and encourage Belarusian leaders to seek autonomy.

The most sensitive dimension is security. NATO membership cannot be offered immediately; doing so would risk provoking Russia at the moment when Belarus is most fragile. Nevertheless Russia's Armed Forces, bogged down in an interminable Ukrainian invasion, would hardly be in a position to occupy Belarus. Instead Europe could propose an incremental framework: first, a non-NATO security partnership focused upon border integrity, cyber defence and officer training; later, participation in NATO’s Partnership for Peace programmes; and eventually, if the country stabilises and Russia’s capacity to retaliate declines, a pathway towards full membership. Such a sequencing mirrors the gradualism that worked for Central Europe in the 1990s and the Western Balkans more recently.

Meanwhile, Russia’s own position in Europe would erode further. If Belarus drifts westward, Moscow loses not only military leverage but also a vital narrative. The Kremlin has long argued that Slavic unity forms a natural barrier against Western encroachment. A democratic Belarus moving towards Europe would fatally undermine that claim, demonstrating instead that Russia’s sphere of influence is sustained only by coercion and systemic weakness. This would deepen Russia’s isolation from the principal political and economic institutions of Europe, leaving her dependent upon China and a dwindling set of authoritarian partners.

Europe should also anticipate Russian counter-measures: the deployment of covert operatives to influence the succession process, financial pressure through withdrawal of energy subsidies, cyber attacks and propaganda aimed at discrediting democratic reform. To mitigate these, the European Union will need to act with speed and unity. A coordinated sanctions policy against any individuals or entities seeking to sabotage the transition could help deter interference. Likewise, rapid provision of economic assistance and emergency energy supplies would reduce Belarus’s vulnerability to Russian blackmail.

The final piece of the strategy concerns Belarusian society itself. European engagement should not be limited to elites. Scholarships, cultural exchanges, media support and digital infrastructure programmes can create a lasting psychological reorientation. The Baltic States provide a useful analogy: they re-Europeanised not only through treaties but through the cultivation of new generations who regarded Brussels and Warsaw, not Moscow, as their natural partners.

In time, a post-Lukashenko Belarus could become an anchor of stability on Europe’s eastern border, complementing an eventual Ukrainian reconstruction and forming part of a broad arc of states united by democratic governance, open markets and collective security ties. For Russia this would represent a geopolitical defeat. For Europe it would be the culmination of a long-term project to achieve continental peace through the voluntary association of states rather than through zones of domination.

The opportunity may come suddenly, for autocratic systems often collapse with little warning. Europe’s task is to be prepared, sober and patient: to recognise that Belarus is not an appendage of Russia but a European nation temporarily trapped by history. When the moment arrives, Europe must be ready to help her come home.