Belarusian society’s polarization reaches unsafe levels amid Ukraine war – sociologist

June 28, BPN. The war in Ukraine has “easily built into the equation of division and mutual rejection in Belarusian society,” independent sociologist Filip Bikanaŭ said during an online presentation of the Belarus Change Tracker report on June 27.

Commenting on the results of an opinion poll conducted in May 2022, Bikanaŭ noted that “the polarization between supporters and opponents of the authorities reaches unsafe values.”

According to the expert, there are “preconditions for violent conflict” as “the social distance between supporters and opponents of the authorities has increased.”

He also pointed at an apparent correlation: “An opponent of Russia’s war in Ukraine is likely to be an opponent of the Belarusian regime. And, respectively, a supporter of the Russian army’s actions would support [Alaksandr] Łukašenka.”

At the same time, the sociologist noted that Belarusians are afraid to be involved in a full-scale war: “This is noticeable in the answers of neutral groups, which unite around the notion that Belarus has been kept from entering the war.”

“When Łukašenka sells the rhetoric that the country is resisting being drawn into war, these words fall on fertilized soil,” Bikanaŭ said. “The picture of a terrible future works as an alternative universe, the one even worse than where people live now. Like, our well-being is lousy, but it could have been much worse.”

The expert recalled that according to a Chatham House poll conducted in March 2022, 54 percent of those polled did not agree that Belarus should enter a full-scale war, while 25 percent found it difficult to answer. Only one in five supported the idea.