Belarus’s standoff with Russia over natural gas prices and the corresponding arrears continues. And so does Russia’s ensuing punishment of Belarus by way of cutting back on duty-free oil. Meanwhile, there is also no end in sight yet to the public rallies against the presidential... MORE

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė told journalists in Riga earlier this month (February 2017), “We are worried about the Zapad 2017 exercise, during which concentrations of extremely large and aggressive forces will demonstrate [Russian] preparations for war with the West” (Delfi.lt, February 9). Russia’s large-scale exercise... MORE

Belarus’s legendary calm was shattered by three momentous disruptions in recent days. First, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka surprisingly agreed to a two-hour meeting with Iosif Seredich, the editor-in-chief of the major opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya. Second, mass rallies have gripped Minsk and Belarus’s other five regional... MORE

Amidst intensifying tensions with Russia (see EDM, February 6, 14), Belarus’s relations with another erstwhile ally, Armenia, are also deteriorating. Even though, Armenia and Belarus are both members of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military alliance, their bilateral relationship is full of controversy... MORE

The conflict between Russia and Belarus reached a high water mark in the scandalous pronouncements of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to the press earlier this month (see EDM, February 6). And these tensions along the Moscow-Minsk axis remain the major focus of the Belarusian media. Lukashenka’s... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka held a record-long press conference for the Belarusian press corps, on Friday, February 3 (TV.rain.ru, YouTube, February 3). It lasted 7 hours and 20 minutes. Lukashenka’s central message was in response to a dramatic worsening of Belarus’s relationship with Russia (see EDM,... MORE

On February 1, Russian and then Belarusian media reported some unexpected news: Moscow decided to set up a border zone between its Smolensk, Bryansk and Pskov regions and Belarus (RIA Novosti, February 1). The decision was met with an immediate negative reaction in Minsk, where... MORE

Minsk continues to drift away from Moscow. Among the most recent indications of this trend was President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s remark about “wars for independence” during his meeting with university professors. “We obtained independence very cheaply,” said Lukashenka. “All peoples fought for it like our brothers... MORE

Since Alyaksandr Lukashenka became president of Belarus over two decades ago, Moscow has consistently viewed his country as its ally, difficult at times but one that, when the chips were down, would be in Russia’s corner. The West, meanwhile, has routinely denounced him as the... MORE

Belarus’s already strained relations with Russia have recently deteriorated even further. Several new indications add to the previously compiled list (see EDM, January 18, 20). First, during a January 18 episode of the Russian talk show Pravo Golosa, a casual survey of the TV audience... MORE