When, in December 1918, the Red Army captured Minsk and the short-lived (established on March 25, 1918) Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) ceased to exist, multiple nationalist activists fled Belarus and found refuge in several European countries, including Germany. After Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party... MORE

On February 17–18, the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Sir Suma Chakrabarti, paid a visit to Minsk and met with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka (ONT, February 17). This was the first trip by an EBRD president to the Belarusian capital since... MORE

Most political commentators agree that the Minsk armistice negotiations over the war in eastern Ukraine have raised Belarus’s international profile (see EDM, February 12). Thus, according to Kirill Koktysh, a Minsk-born professor at the Institute of Foreign Relations in Moscow, the Belarusian government should take... MORE

Renewed high-level negotiations on the war in Ukraine, with an agreement signed in Minsk, on Thursday, February 12, further raise the stature of Belarus in the eyes of the international community. Alongside the September 2014 ceasefire agreements previously also signed in the Belarusian capital, Belarus’s... MORE

Perhaps in no other modern-day country, with the exception of Israel, have Jews historically made up a larger percentage of the overall population as in Belarus. For example, in 1897, Jews comprised 14.2 percent of the residents of Belarusian territory; and in Grodno and Minsk... MORE

On January 29, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka gave his regular press conference for domestic and international media (Tut.by, January 29). This time it lasted more than seven hours, during which Lukashenka consumed five cups of green tea. It was the first such event staged at... MORE

Russia’s and its proxies’ military advantage (see EDM, January 22, February 3) is increasingly shaping the Minsk process of negotiations to Ukraine’s detriment. That process maintains the fiction that Russia is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine. Ukraine’s official position in Kyiv and... MORE

Belarus stands out from other European countries in terms of the casualty rates it suffered during World War II: close to one-third of the entire population of Belarus perished in the war. Another distinguishing feature of Belarus is the role played by its underground partisan... MORE

It is tempting to slip into a spiral of sensationalism when describing the concurrent trends in Belarus’s foreign relations and national aspirations, even though—if history is any guide—these trends may be reversed as abruptly as they started. So far, however, tensions have been on the... MORE

Amidst the economic crisis in Russia and the ensuing devaluation of the Belarusian ruble, Belarus has been making increasingly notable attempts to voice its independent opinion on the world stage as well as improve its relations with the West. On January 13, Belarus lowered the... MORE