Lukashenko's Time Has Passed

• Sergey Kovalchuk
• 30.04.2026, 10:21

Poland and Lithuania respond harshly to the dictator.

If we believe Cole's words, Lukashenko dreams and sees Belarus as a part of the European family of nations. And what kind of sanctions can there be between relatives?

It seems that we are witnessing a translation from "Yabatkin's" into normal language of the phrase: lift the sanctions, because they help us so much to get up from our knees that we can't get up from our bunk. Minsk consistently and through absolutely all agents of influence promotes the idea of lifting sanctions.

The efforts to reverse the geopolitical stuffing by the domestic Foreign Ministry have a strange effect.

On the one hand, today's American administration has clearly found common ground with Minsk in matters of mutual stroking of the government's ego - by lifting American sanctions in exchange for live goods.

On the other hand, without synchronized or at least delayed lifting of European sanctions, there is little use in dismantling the sanctions barrier on the part of the Americans. Without European ports and railroads, raw materials from Belarus cannot get to the world market cheaply and quickly.

This is the reason why Lukashenko is trying once again to present the EU, and first of all neighboring Lithuania and Poland, as offended and inadequate: I have already released your agents and sent them to you, and I am showing how bleached and fluffy I am, and you are still dissatisfied with something.

But both Poland and Lithuania demonstrate firmness in the real assessment of the Minsk regime as an ally of the Kremlin in the aggression not only against Ukraine, but also as an actor of hybrid attacks against the EU countries.

Times and reality are changing. And if a couple of years ago, having secured American support, Lukashenko would have jumped into the club of the respected and handshakeable in a red convertible, today the advocacy of the head of the last dictatorship in Europe by the United States looks more suspicious than positive for Brussels and national governments of the EU.

Sergei Kovalchuk, "Salidarnasts"