Why Lukashenko Keeps Getting Away With It
25th May 2021
Yet a question infrequently answered is how, in the apparently civilised and enlightened 21st century, leaders are able to get away with such brazen acts against their own populace and with flouting international law.
The reason is, quite simply, due to fear and a sense that the West will never stand up to the world’s dictators. On the home front, Lukashenko has no need for cyber hacks or population monitoring when he has a police force ready and willing to detain or batter political opponents – and when the price of resistance is so brutally high, there is little incentive to join rallies and marches. Leonid Volkov, Alexei Navalny’s chief of staff, told me during an interview for this magazine that over a million Russians would flock to the streets to protest Vladimir Putin’s regime. In the end there were between 7,000 to 9,000 protestors in Saint Petersburg and 10,000 to 15,000 in Moscow, with over 1,700 people ultimately being arrested at the rallies. In short, few people were willing to risk being arrested.
Western sanctions never affect those who dominate politics in Minsk and Moscow.