Europe’s last two dictators again performed their perennial theater of solidarity this week when Alyaksandr Lukashenka travelled to St. Petersburg to meet Vladimir Putin.
It was Lukashenka’s fourth trip to meet Putin in Russia so far this year, and the script was as well worn as it was predictable and empty. Putin lauded the partnership between the two countries, calling Belarus Russia’s “large and reliable partner in the economic sphere” and stressing that trade between Moscow and Minsk was flourishing despite Western sanctions.
For his part, Lukashenka accused the West of waging a campaign of “terror” against Belarus, thanked Putin for being a “reliable economic partner,” and said Minsk would meet its economic obligations to Russia “at any cost.”
Lukashenka’s frequent pilgrimages to Russia, the performative partnership rituals, the snowmobile ride, skiing expedition, and the trip on a yacht all illustrate the corner that the Belarusian autocrat has backed himself and his country into. The Belarusian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent, its hijacking of Ryanair Flight 4978 and abduction of Raman Pratasevich, its weaponization of illegal migration, its withdrawal from the European Union’s Eastern Partnership, and its broader Cold War with Europe have effectively burned all of Minsk’s bridges with the West. All that is left is Russia.