The agendas of the Belarusian official and opposition-minded media outlets create the impression of two parallel worlds. While some common themes exist, such as the creation of new government entities, the treatment of such subjects could not be more contrasting. According to Belta, Belarus’s official... MORE

On January 22, Belarusians identifying as pro-Western (as opposed to those who identify as Russo-centric) celebrated the 160th anniversary of the so-called Kastus Kalinowski uprising on Belarusian soil. Thus, Belarusian émigrés organized a performance in front of the Russian embassy in Warsaw in commemoration. The... MORE

Numerous Russian media outlets (e.g., RBC, January 22) echoed the content of a recent US media report, according to which rare earth metals necessary for the production of microchips, electronics and armor-piercing ammunition are still being delivered to the European Union from China by rail.... MORE

The number of Belarusians living within the Russian Federation fell from 521,000 in 2010 to only 208,000 in 2021, according to newly released official Russian census data. This represents a decline of more than 60 percent since the end of the Soviet period when there... MORE

Belarusians are divided, and the politically conscious Belarusians live in their own information bubbles and echo chambers. This is the principal conclusion that Yury Drakakhrust of the Belarusian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty drew from the most recent (November 2022) online survey of urban... MORE

The Belarusian government’s onslaught on those implicated in the 2020 post-election protests does not show signs of abating. In fact, this effort is radicalizing despite it being more than two years since those protests broke out. No security-related concerns dictated that Ales Bialiatski, a 2022... MORE

If there is any leitmotif to the current developments in Belarus, it would be mostly rooted in attempts at socioeconomic survival while avoiding immediate participation in Russia’s war effort against Ukraine. It could be that the leitmotif for developments within the exiled opposition is lingering... MORE

On December 29, the Belarusian state media reported that an S-300 surface-to-air missile launched by Ukrainian forces had dropped into Belarus, near the village of Horbakha, about 50 kilometers from the shared border with Ukraine (Belta, December 29, 2022). Later, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense... MORE

According to human rights watchdog Viasna, as of December 31, 2022, almost 1,450 political prisoners remain locked away in Belarus (Viasna, December 31, 2022). On December 14, 2022, the Belarusian parliament approved the draft of a law that would allow the president to deprive Belarusians... MORE

On December 28, in Belarus, a closed tribunal began against Tatyana Kurilina, the former administrator of web-based chats for Belarusian oppositionists. Kurilina has been charged under 12 articles of Belarus’s criminal code, including allegations of slander and insults against Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. If found... MORE