So far, Alaksandar Łukašenka has managed to steer his country clear of direct involvement in military conflicts. He refrained from sending troops to Ukraine to help Russian forces, although he has fully backed the invasion. He would not push his luck as far as to attack NATO. Although the Belarusian ruler has tied his country firmly to Russia, he is still trying to play his own game. The game, however, could end badly.
“Lithuania has practically forbidden us to transport our goods across the border. Under international law, this step constitutes economic aggression,” Pavieł Muraviejka, deputy head of the Belarusian Security Council, said on October 24. “From the point of view of simple logic, we have all grounds to cut a vital corridor by force of arms.”
On October 30, the Lithuanian foreign ministry summoned Belarusian Charge d’Affaires Jarasłaŭ Chmyl to hand him a note of protest in connection with the general’s statement published by Vecherny Minsk and quoted by several other media outlets.
Meaningless threats to Lithuania
One can only guess what corridor the general was referring to. After Łukašenka brutally crushed peaceful demonstrations against 2020 election fraud, Lithuania refused to ship Belarusian potash through its port of Klaipeda. Does Muraviejka want to cut a corridor to Klaipeda?
To do so, it would not be enough to send Belarusian tanks to the Lithuanian port terminal. It would also be necessary to somehow force the stubborn Lithuanians to transport potash fertilizers by rail and load them onto ships. Basically, Minsk would have to change the Lithuanian government and force it to lift the Western sanctions, including US restrictions.
Setting fire to the house to fry eggs?
General Muraviejka might also mean cutting a corridor to Russia’s Kaliningrad region. In 2022, due to EU sanctions, Vilnius banned most Russian transit through Belarus to the Russian exclave.
The case in point is the so-called Suwałki gap – a strip of Polish and Lithuanian territory between Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad region. Moscow strategists call the area NATO’s Achilles’ heel. However problematic it may be for NATO, the alliance is undoubtedly more powerful than Belarus and Russia combined.
In July, General Andrey Kartopolov, head of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, said that the Wagner mercenaries deployed in Belarus constituted a “punching fist” capable of capturing the Suwałki gap “in a matter of hours.”
General Muraviejka, by the way, graduated with honors from Russia’s Military Academy. His statement reflects what he learned there.
NATO has recently strengthened its defenses of the Suwalki area, so it is not as vulnerable as before. In any case, the general was talking about an armed clash with NATO, which would be like setting fire to the house to fry eggs.
Who needs Suwałki gap?
At his meeting with Vladimir Putin on July 23, Łukašenka said that Wagner troops stationed in Belarus were eager to go on a tour of Warsaw or Rzeszow. It was a clumsy attempt to sing to the tune of the big brother, who a few days earlier had accused Poland of planning to seize some Ukrainian and Belarusian lands.
The Belarusian ruler realized very soon that he went too far. He said that he was only kidding and that Minsk did not need the Suwałki gap at all. Last week, Łukašenka indicated his willingness to improve relations with the West, and especially with Warsaw.
On the whole, Łukašenka and Belarusian generals, including Defense Minister Viktar Chrenin, have stuck to purely defensive rhetoric until recently despite their anti-Western sentiment. They always said they did not want an inch of anyone else’s land, but they would not give away an inch of their own. Muraviejka’s remark clearly stands out in this respect, and he probably regrets making it.
Łukašenka’s humble ambitions
Belarusian military commanders are reluctant to fight against Ukraine, let alone NATO. Belarusian generals do not look particularly physically fit and most likely thinking about a shot of brandy in the evening and a quiet life on a good pension.
Although Łukašenka is a tougher autocrat than Putin, he has no imperial ambitions, but he sometimes repeats Moscow’s imperial narratives. He is dreaming of ruling his “piece of land” for as long as his health allows, and then pass it on to safe hands, perhaps to his son.
Minsk is aware of the anti-war sentiment among Belarusians. Even the core regime supporters do not buy the idea of sending Belarusian troops to Ukraine, or cutting any corridors into NATO.
It is true that Łukašenka was happy to allow Russia to deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, but certainly not because he dreams of a nuclear apocalypse. On the contrary, he is convinced that no enemy would risk attacking a nuclear power. Perhaps, the Belarusian autocrat draws inspiration from the North Korean leader, with whom even Washington has to be careful.
Maybe the Belarusian ruler is also thinking about possible “privatization” of the nuclear arsenal in case of serious turmoil in Russia and the collapse of the empire.
Even high-ranked Ukrainian speakers, such as the military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, and the former aide to President Volodymir Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovich, note that Łukašenka is phenomenally devious and self-motivated.
A gun that appears in first act likely to fire in third
The Belarusian strongman has been playing an opportunistic game with Russia since the 1990s, trying to get as much as possible from it for supporting its imperial ambitions. But the more he gets, the riskier this game becomes.
In February 2022, Łukašenka was forced, for better or worse, to make Belarusian territory available for Russian troops to attack Ukraine. He is widely seen as a co-aggressor and deserves sanctions. Petras Austriavicius, a Lithuanian member of the European Parliament and permanent rapporteur on Belarus, said that Muraviejka’s threat proves that the sanctions are effective.
Kremlin has cold-bloodedly used its “little brother” in its aggression against Ukraine. Similarly, Moscow uses Belarus in its global game against the West, including nuclear blackmail. When a gun is on stage, it can go off at any moment, regardless of the will of General Muraviejka or his commander-in-chief.