Pierre Laval and Alexander Lukashenko: The Politics of the Vassal State

Saturday 22 August 2026

History seldom repeats itself with sufficient precision to permit the easy equation of two political figures. The circumstances are different, the institutions are different and the personalities are invariably different. Yet history does produce recurring types of politician. One of the most interesting is the ruler of a weak country who discovers that his survival depends upon accommodation with an overwhelmingly powerful and aggressive neighbour — and who gradually persuades himself that collaboration with that neighbour is not merely prudent but patriotic.

Pierre Laval, the principal political architect of French collaboration with Nazi Germany, was such a man. Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus since 1994, increasingly resembles another.

The comparison should not be overstated. Laval governed only part of a defeated and occupied France and ultimately exercised authority under German military supremacy. Lukashenko governs a formally sovereign Belarus with its own armed forces, bureaucracy, borders and diplomatic representation. Nazi Germany and contemporary Russia are not equivalent political systems and the Holocaust gives the history of Vichy France a dimension of criminality for which there is no precise Belarusian counterpart.

Nevertheless the comparison is instructive because both men confront the same fundamental political problem: how does the leader of a weaker state preserve his own authority when the survival of his political system has become dependent upon a much stronger foreign power?

Their answer is essentially the same. Collaborate — but never quite surrender everything.

The strange career of Pierre Laval

Pierre Laval was not born a fascist. Indeed this is one of the reasons his career remains so fascinating.

Born in 1883, he came from modest provincial origins, became a lawyer and entered politics on the socialist left. He served repeatedly in French governments during the unstable politics of the Third Republic and was Prime Minister before the Second World War. By the 1930s he had migrated substantially towards the conservative right, but he was fundamentally an opportunist rather than an ideologue.

Then came the catastrophe of 1940.

France suffered one of the most astonishing military collapses in modern European history. German forces defeated the French and British armies in a matter of weeks. Marshal Philippe Pétain became head of the new French state established at Vichy while Germany occupied northern and western France.

Laval concluded that Germany had won.

From that proposition followed virtually everything else.

If Germany was going to dominate Europe, Laval reasoned, France should accommodate herself to the new European order. Cooperation with Berlin might preserve some French autonomy, prevent harsher German occupation and perhaps secure France a privileged position in Hitler’s continental system.

This was the logic of collaboration.

It was not entirely irrational. That is what makes Laval more interesting than a straightforward Nazi sympathiser. He believed himself to be practising Realpolitik. France had been defeated. Britain appeared incapable of defeating Germany. The United States had not yet entered the war. The Soviet Union initially had its own pact with Hitler. Under those circumstances, accommodation might appear the least disastrous option available.

But collaboration develops its own momentum.

Once one’s political survival depends upon the occupying power, every concession creates the necessity for another concession. German demands increased. French autonomy diminished. Laval became progressively implicated in policies whose moral character became impossible to disguise — forced labour, repression of the Resistance and the deportation of Jews.

The statesman who imagined that he was manipulating Germany increasingly became Germany’s instrument.

That is the first lesson of Laval.

A vassal may believe that he is managing his imperial patron. The imperial patron generally believes otherwise.

Enter Alexander Lukashenko

Alexander Lukashenko’s political origins are similarly more complicated than his contemporary reputation might suggest.

He emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union as a populist politician promising order, economic security and an end to corruption. Elected President of Belarus in 1994, he progressively dismantled the country’s democratic institutions and constructed one of Europe’s most durable personal dictatorships.

For many years his foreign policy was remarkably skilful.

Belarus depended economically upon Russia, particularly upon favourable energy arrangements and access to Russian markets. Yet Lukashenko repeatedly resisted complete political absorption. He quarrelled with Moscow, flirted periodically with the European Union and declined several Russian demands that might have compromised Belarusian autonomy.

He supported integration with Russia while ensuring that integration never quite reached the point at which Alexander Lukashenko ceased to be President of an independent country.

This was not Belarusian nationalism in the conventional sense. Lukashenko’s overriding political objective has consistently been preservation of his own system of power. Even before 2020, analysts observed that his principal concern was maintaining personal control rather than strengthening institutions capable of guaranteeing Belarusian sovereignty independently of him.

For a surprisingly long period, this worked.

Then came the Belarusian presidential election of August 2020.

The fatal bargain

The enormous demonstrations following the disputed 2020 election represented the greatest threat Lukashenko had faced during his rule.

The regime survived through repression. Protesters were arrested, opposition leaders were imprisoned or driven abroad and independent institutions were systematically crushed.

But something else happened.

Lukashenko became dramatically more dependent upon Moscow.

This transformed the relationship between Belarus and Russia. Previously Lukashenko could play Russia and the West against one another because each side represented a potential alternative to the other. After 2020 the Western alternative largely disappeared. His regime’s survival had become intertwined with Russian support.

The consequences became apparent on 24 February 2022.

Russian forces invaded Ukraine not merely from Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories but also from Belarus. Belarusian territory, roads, railways, airfields and other infrastructure facilitated the northern thrust towards Kyiv. Belarus thereby became strategically integral to the opening phase of Russia’s invasion even though Belarusian troops themselves did not join the assault in substantial numbers. Contemporary analysis continues to describe Belarus as a Russian strategic “balcony” from which Moscow can threaten Ukraine and NATO’s eastern members.

This is where the comparison with Laval becomes particularly interesting.

Lukashenko had not been conquered by Russia.

He had made himself dependent upon her.

Collaboration without occupation

Laval’s excuse was therefore in one respect considerably stronger than Lukashenko’s.

German troops had defeated France. Paris was occupied. Millions of French prisoners of war were in German hands. Whatever Laval’s subsequent crimes and errors, the strategic catastrophe that created Vichy had already occurred before his policy of collaboration reached its mature form.

No Russian army conquered Minsk in 2020.

Lukashenko voluntarily destroyed the alternatives available to Belarus.

By suppressing domestic democratic politics, alienating Europe and making Russian political support indispensable to his survival, he constructed precisely the strategic dependency from which he subsequently claimed there was no escape.

This illustrates an important characteristic of modern authoritarianism. Personal dictatorship may appear to strengthen the state because it concentrates power. In reality it can weaken the state catastrophically because the interests of the ruler and the interests of the country cease to coincide.

Belarus might benefit from diversified economic relations, political reconciliation with Europe and strategic neutrality between Russia and NATO.

Lukashenko cannot easily pursue those policies because each would threaten the political arrangements upon which his regime depends.

Hence Russia’s war has simultaneously strengthened Lukashenko personally and weakened Belarus geopolitically. Russian economic dependence has become extraordinary: Chatham House estimates that roughly two-thirds of Belarusian exports now go to Russia while military command structures and defence industries have become increasingly integrated.

The dictator survives.

The country becomes less sovereign.

But Lukashenko is not Laval

There is nevertheless an important difference and it should not be overlooked.

Lukashenko continues to resist complete subordination.

He has avoided sending the Belarusian army directly into Ukraine. He periodically adopts the language of negotiation. He has maintained contacts with Western governments when opportunities arise and during 2025 the United States reopened direct dialogue with Minsk, contributing to the release of more than one hundred political prisoners.

This is not liberalisation. Political repression remains severe. Human Rights Watch reported that at least 1,110 people remained imprisoned on politically motivated grounds in December 2025 and documented continuing repression of journalists, activists, lawyers and opponents of Belarusian participation in Russia’s war

Rather it reflects Lukashenko’s instinctive understanding that complete dependence upon Moscow is dangerous.

Here he remains the consummate political survivor.

Russia needs Belarus. Belarus provides strategic depth west of Moscow, proximity to Kyiv, borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and a geographical position adjacent to the vulnerable Suwałki corridor between Belarus and Kaliningrad. Russian military infrastructure on Belarusian territory consequently has value far exceeding the country’s economic importance.

Lukashenko understands this.

He therefore possesses something Laval progressively lost: bargaining power.

Russia wants Belarusian cooperation but also Belarusian stability. Removing Lukashenko might produce political upheaval. Annexing Belarus would generate enormous political costs. For the moment it may therefore suit Moscow to maintain the fiction — and substantial remaining reality — of Belarusian sovereignty.

Lukashenko’s task is to exploit that Russian preference indefinitely.

The dictator’s paradox

This produces a peculiar paradox.

Lukashenko needs Russia to preserve his dictatorship.

But he needs Belarus to remain independent if his dictatorship is to mean anything.

Were Belarus simply absorbed into the Russian Federation, Alexander Lukashenko would cease to be a head of state and become, at best, a provincial governor dependent upon Moscow.

Therefore the same man whose actions have progressively compromised Belarusian sovereignty also has a powerful personal incentive to preserve its final remnants.

This distinguishes him sharply from ideological Russian imperialists. Lukashenko may speak sentimentally about Slavic brotherhood and the common history of Russians and Belarusians but his political career demonstrates an intense attachment to one particular feature of Belarusian independence: Alexander Lukashenko gets to run it.

The Kremlin may therefore be both his protector and his greatest long-term threat.

This is why recent Western discussion of Belarus has become more subtle. A January 2026 Chatham House study argues that some degree of Belarusian independence survives and that Western governments should consider whether conditional engagement might eventually restore Belarus as a buffer rather than abandoning her permanently as a Russian military platform.

That possibility rests upon precisely the contradiction at the heart of Lukashenko’s regime.

He is Russia’s ally because he needs Moscow.

He is potentially Russia’s adversary because he needs Belarus.

Laval’s final mistake

Pierre Laval eventually discovered the danger inherent in such arrangements.

The collaborator imagines that his relationship with the dominant power gives him influence. In fact the relationship frequently gives the dominant power influence over him.

Laval believed cooperation would preserve French interests. Yet as Germany’s military fortunes deteriorated, his room for manoeuvre contracted rather than expanded. By 1944 the Vichy regime had become increasingly dependent upon German coercion.

Then Germany lost.

Laval fled, was captured, tried for treason and executed by firing squad in October 1945.

His historical reputation never recovered because the defence that collaboration had been necessary to protect France was overwhelmed by the evidence of what collaboration had actually entailed.

That is the second lesson for Lukashenko.

The fate of a collaborator is intimately connected with the fate of his patron.

The problem of retrospective patriotism

Laval insisted that history would vindicate him. He portrayed collaboration as an attempt to protect France under impossible circumstances.

Lukashenko deploys a comparable argument. Belarus, in his presentation, is a small country caught between gigantic geopolitical forces. Friendship with Russia guarantees security. Opposition to Moscow would bring war or revolution. His authoritarian system therefore supposedly protects Belarusians from the catastrophes suffered elsewhere in the former Soviet world.

There is a fragment of truth in this, just as there was a fragment of strategic logic in Laval’s calculations.

Small states really do face constraints.

Belarus cannot conduct foreign policy as though Russia were geographically irrelevant. Nor can any Belarusian government sensibly ignore the country’s profound economic, linguistic, cultural and historical connections with Russia.

But recognising constraints is different from manufacturing them.

Lukashenko’s repression after 2020 destroyed much of his ability to manoeuvre between Russia and Europe. Russia then exploited the dependency that resulted.

Belarusian territory was used to attack a neighbouring state.

Russian military integration deepened.

Russian weapons were stationed in Belarus.

Belarusian economic dependence upon Russia intensified.

And Lukashenko’s regime continues to suppress people who oppose Belarusian involvement in Russia’s war.

In July 2026 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office asked Ukraine’s prosecutor to consider allegations against Lukashenko connected with Belarus’s role in the Russian invasion and the transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus. Whether such proceedings ever produce a courtroom appearance is another question entirely, but the development illustrates how Lukashenko’s association with Russia’s war is acquiring a potentially personal legal dimension.

Laval would have recognised the predicament.

The difference between survival and success

Lukashenko is unquestionably one of Europe’s most accomplished political survivors.

He has governed Belarus for more than three decades. He has survived economic crises, Russian pressure, Western sanctions, mass demonstrations and the greatest European war since 1945.

Yet survival should not be confused with successful statesmanship.

A successful ruler leaves his country stronger than he found it.

Lukashenko may eventually leave Belarus with weaker democratic institutions, diminished international independence, overwhelming economic reliance upon Russia and Russian military infrastructure embedded upon Belarusian territory.

His personal achievement may therefore become Belarus’s national catastrophe.

That was ultimately Laval’s error as well.

He confused preservation of his political position with preservation of his country.

The vassal’s dilemma

There is an ancient problem in international politics that neither Laval nor Lukashenko has solved.

A weak ruler confronted by a powerful neighbour may seek security through submission. But every act of submission increases the stronger country’s leverage. The more dependent the weaker ruler becomes, the more dangerous resistance becomes. Eventually the weaker state discovers that what began as an alliance has become vassalage.

The process seldom occurs in a single dramatic moment.

Sovereignty disappears by instalments.

One military facility is accepted. One economic concession is granted. One diplomatic position is coordinated. One opposition movement is suppressed with foreign assistance. Another security agreement is signed.

Each concession may appear individually rational.

Together they transform the state.

That is why Pierre Laval remains relevant to contemporary Eastern Europe.

The lesson of Vichy is not merely that collaboration with wicked regimes is morally reprehensible. That proposition is too easy to be interesting.

The deeper lesson is that collaboration is strategically addictive.

Once a ruler relies upon a foreign power to protect him against his own people, he gradually loses the ability to protect his country against that foreign power.

Laval discovered this too late.

Alexander Lukashenko may already understand it.

His occasional manoeuvres towards Washington, his reluctance to commit Belarusian soldiers directly to Russia’s war and his continuing insistence upon the formal sovereignty of Belarus suggest that he appreciates the trap into which he has manoeuvred himself.

Yet understanding the trap does not mean that one can escape it.

Laval spent his final years attempting to preserve some fragment of French autonomy inside a political system whose existence depended upon German power.

Lukashenko now attempts something structurally similar — preserving some fragment of Belarusian autonomy inside a political system whose survival increasingly depends upon Russian power.

There the historical analogy becomes unsettling.

Because if Vladimir Putin’s Russia eventually loses its confrontation with Ukraine and the West, Lukashenko may discover the final principle of collaborationist politics.

The patron’s protection lasts only for as long as the patron is powerful.

The consequences of collaboration can last considerably longer.