"Belarusians Will Have The Opportunity To Take Advantage Of This"

• 10.06.2026, 10:53

War could change the situation.

Leszek Szeremka, the former Polish ambassador to Belarus , believes that the war in Ukraine could bring changes to Belarus. The Polish diplomat expressed this opinion in interview with the website Charter97.org:

— To be honest, I don’t see any possibility of resolving the issue peacefully at this point. A peaceful solution probably won’t be possible as long as Putin is in power in Russia and he is waging war against Ukraine. When someone is waging a war, it is very important to them that there be order and calm somewhere on the flanks or in the rear. That is why Russia will under no circumstances allow anything to change in Belarus without its consent.

They may be thinking about replacing Lukashenko with someone else, but I always say there’s a proverb: you don’t change horses midstream. I don’t see a peaceful path. Remember the mobilization six years ago after the elections? Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. And it still didn’t work out.

But times have changed now. On the one hand, Russia is more preoccupied with controlling Belarus, but Lukashenko has some room to maneuver. I don’t know to what extent he’s using it, or if he’ll be able to use it. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of people have left Belarus—the most active, the most pro-Western ones. This has had a slightly negative impact on trends within Belarus itself.

Conditions are worse now than they were six years ago. But there’s a war going on right now, and, you know, war has its own dynamics—things can change quickly. But when they do change, it might be for the better for you, and there will be an opportunity to take advantage of that.