Lukashenka Touts More Anti-Poland Rhetoric Following Presidential Election

Executive Summary:

• During his re-election as Belarus’s President, Alyaksandr Lukashenka warned Poland that any attempt to annex western Ukraine would precipitate a conflict with Belarus and Russia.
• Lukashenka’s warnings are part of a broader obsession with Poland’s regional and European influence and support for the Belarusian democratic opposition.
• Lukashenka’s regular attacks on Poland serve Moscow’s objectives of depicting Warsaw as a provocateur that can pull Europe into a war with Russia.

In an unusual four-and-a-half-hour press conference on the day of his re-election, on January 26, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka staged his now customary attack on Poland. He claimed that Warsaw has its sights set on annexing western Ukraine and that such a move would provoke war with Belarus and, therefore, directly involve Russia in the conflict (BelTA, January 26). Lukashenka has spent several years attempting to depict Poland as a militarist and expansionist power intent on dominating its eastern neighbors. This helps to burnish his image as a defender of Belarusian independence and deflects attention from Minsk, acting as a Russian vassal in supporting Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

In reality, Poland has no claims on either Belarusian or Ukrainian territory and was one of the first countries to recognize the independence of both states when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Diplomatic relations between Warsaw and Minsk were formalized in March 1992, and successive Polish governments attempted to promote Belarusian democracy and European integration through several initiatives, including the Eastern Partnership Program (European Union External Action Service, March 17, 2022; Gov.pol, accessed January 31). Warsaw’s influence, however, remained restricted, as the Lukashenka regime feared that pluralism and democratization would dislodge it from power (Center for Eastern Studies, July 24, 2023). Warsaw and its Baltic neighbors have periodically attempted to expand diplomatic and economic ties with Minsk to help defend Belarusian independence from an increasingly belligerent Russia, even at the cost of partially legitimizing Lukashenka (Polish Institute of International Affairs, October 8, 2020). Such initiatives were largely derailed following the extensive crackdown on mass protests against election fraud in August 2020, culminating in more extensive sanctions from the European Union against Belarus.

Minsk reacted aggressively to the EU sanctions by enabling thousands of migrants from non-European countries to enter Poland illegally from Belarusian territory (Instytut Nowej Europy, March 1, 2022). The aim was to create a political crisis in Poland and divisions within the European Union on how to handle the refugees. Since August 2021, occasional violent clashes between migrants and Polish soldiers have been reported along the border. The migrant crisis resulted in even tighter Polish sanctions against Belarus, including the closure of several checkpoints preventing the movement of people and goods, and an expansion of border fortifications (Rzeczpospolita, May 11, 2024).

Since 2020, Belarus’s dependence on Russia has significantly increased. The process of deepening economic and military-political integration between the two countries, as outlined in the Union State war doctrine issued in February 2022, further convinced Warsaw to expand its military armaments program (Polish Institute of International Affairs, June 1, 2023). Minsk made its territory available to Moscow for the military invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, the two countries increased the number of joint military exercises and signed an agreement on military-technical cooperation and developing a Regional Forces Group. This would help facilitate the stationing of Russian soldiers in Belarus. Minsk has staged other cross-border provocations, including helicopter incursions into Polish airspace, threats to move Russian Wagner mercenaries to the Polish border after their mutiny against the Russian Defense Ministry in June 2023, plans to station Russia’s Oreshnik missile systems in Belarus, and warnings of stationing Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus (Polish Institute of International Relations, July 10, 2023; The Aviationist, August 2, 2023; Belta, December 6, 2024).

Minsk and Moscow evidently coordinate their propaganda attacks on Warsaw. Poland has been consistently depicted as Belarus’s greatest adversary, allegedly planning to overthrow its government (Center for Eastern Studies, July 24, 2023). The psychological purpose is to generate anxiety in Poland about an impending war and to portray Poland, among other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, as a belligerent regional power. Lukashenka, however, has additional objectives in demonizing the Polish government and its growing military strength. Polish officials are outspoken on Lukashenka’s authoritarianism and openly host the Belarusian opposition and independent media outlets. Poland’s Foreign Ministry criticized the January 26 presidential election by asserting that they violated basic democratic procedures and did not reflect the will of the Belarusian people (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Poland, January 25, 2025). Mass protests by Belarusian exiles against Lukashenka were held in Warsaw on election day (X.com/Tsihanouskaya, January 26; Balkan Insight, January 27).

Lukashenka’s obsession with Poland as the chief adversary is also evident in establishing September 17 as National Unity Day in Belarus (Belarus.By, September 15, 2021). The holiday commemorates the anniversary of the Soviet invasion and partition of Poland with Nazi Germany in September 1939. To fan anti-Polish sentiments, Lukashenka claimed that “Polish revisionism” aimed to seize Belarusian territories that belonged to Poland before World War II. Such assertions were magnified after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to create an allegedly threatening atmosphere from the West toward Belarus.

Repressive moves against the sizable Polish minority have accompanied Belarusian state propaganda. According to the 2019 Belarusian census, the Polish minority in Belarus was listed at 288,000 individuals, or around 3.1 percent of the population, although officials in Warsaw claimed the actual number was over one million (Belstat.gov.by, 2019). The minority was mostly concentrated in Belarusian oblasts bordering Poland and Lithuania. In recent years, the government has taken several steps to weaken Polish identity, including the removal of Polish as the language of instruction at two Polish secondary schools in Hrodna and Vawkavysk in western Belarus and threatening a ban on Poles from employment in state administration (Center for Eastern Studies, September 19, 2022).

Activists of the Union of Poles in Belarus (Związek Polaków na Białorusi, ZPB) have also been jailed, and some Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) (the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet resistance during World War II) cemeteries in Belarus have been demolished (Gov.pl, July 6, 2022). Minsk viewed the ZPB as a pro-Western organization and a conduit for the government in Warsaw to remove Lukashenka from power. Lukashenka has also launched an expanded campaign against Roman Catholics, who make up about 14 percent of the population, many of whom are Polish (see EDM, January 23). He has depicted the Catholic Church as a fifth column serving foreign interests and undermining Belarusian and Russian Orthodoxy. A more intensive government crackdown on the Polish minority as a pretext for defending Belarusian statehood would further aggravate relations with Warsaw and is more likely to lead to direct Polish intervention. This frequent targeting of Poland by Minsk risks escalation in the already contentious environment while further defining Belarus’ alignment with Moscow’s objectives in the ongoing conflict against Ukraine.