“Long live Belarus!” I see this phrase more and more on the streets of Kyiv, written on the walls and fences. Hundreds of Belarusians have moved to Ukraine, trying to escape the persecution of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. In Kyiv, they silently gather near the Belarusian Embassy, protest in solidarity with hundreds of political prisoners, currently trialed and tortured in Belarus.
Those who escaped the arrests were forced to leave their native country and search for asylum in Ukraine, a country at war with the Kremlin, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, backs and finances Lukashenko.
Putin used to have another pocket dictator in Ukraine – President Viktor Yanukovych. His exodus provoked Putin to start a war.
Maybe it is hard to believe, but Ukraine is still one of the most democratic countries of the former USSR. Unlike Belarusians and Russians, we managed to get rid of Putin’s puppet dictator in 2014. He fled to Russia during the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Yanukovych did not leave in peace. Riot police, faithful to him, killed more than 100 protesters during the revolution. Yanukovych asked Putin to invade Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and started a war in the Donbas, which has already killed more than 14,000 people since its start.
Ukrainians were hoping for the help of the international community. Our country was corrupted and robbed by Yanukovych and his allies. Kremlin was shaking one region after another. So of course we asked for the help of the democratic Western world.
The West imposed sanctions against several major Russian companies and several influential Russians. That was not enough to force the Kremlin to return what it took from us. Russia has adapted to the new reality and even grew its influence in Europe.
Belarusians didn’t want EuroMaidan in their country. After Ukrainians started fighting back against the police, our revolution turned violent. Belarusians were confident their polite protest will get the result they wanted — an end to Lukashenko’s 27-year rule. They drew the attention of the whole world, yet their dictator responded with violence. Riot police violently beat and arrested hundreds of young Belarusians. Lukashenko quickly lost his mind, persecuting critics.
After Lukashenko hijacked the Ryanair flight on May 23 to arrest an opposition journalist, many countries, including Ukraine, closed their airspace for Belarus planes.
Yet Belarusians called for even sharper sanctions. As Belarusian journalist Franak Viacorka said, Western sanctions should be targeting thre major sectors of the Belarusian economy – petrochemicals, steel, and wood. “It will cut the regime from funding and split elites,” Viacorka wrote.
He is right. Yet Lukashenko is not afraid of the Western sanctions on Belarus. The dictator enjoys the full support of Putin, who will always lend money to support a loyal regime. He used to finance Yanukovych in the same way.
Lukashenko is also not scared, because he saw Putin managed to get away with every crime, committed under his rule.
Even after Russian-backed separatists shot down the MH17 flight, killing 298 people including European Union citizens onboard, and even after FSB agents poisoned the Skrypal family in the UK, Western leaders continue to call for dialogue with Russia.
Even the US, which also suffered from Russian election meddling and hacking, recently went softer on Russia. At the end of May, Washington lifted sanctions from Nord Stream 2. Citing US national interests as the main reason, the US gave a green light to the gas pipe aimed to cut Ukraine out of the Russian gas transit system. It is an influential tool of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine that will cause up to $5-6 billion financial losses a year to Ukraine’s economy, experts estimate.
The West’s politics towards Putin remains diplomatic no matter what he does. In his maniac desire to revive the corpse of the Soviet Union, Putin doesn’t want to talk. He knows the West wouldn’t and can’t go to the open confrontation, so he prefers to dictate his own rules.
When in 2014 Putin decided to invade Crimea and got away with that, I understood that the world changed for the worse. If an oppressor gets away with his crimes, others will follow his example. The tactics of democratic leaders do not work on bullies. Bullies understand only force.
No, I am not asking prosperous Western countries to go to war with Putin and Lukashenko for us. Yet how long would you observe the strangling of what many Westerners see as “Russian satellites”? We no longer want to continue those abusive relationships, where we, Belarusians and Ukrainians are only a resource, an object in someone else’s big game.
Western countries would not be so prosperous if they hadn’t allowed corrupt politicians from Eastern Europe to launder the money, they’ve stolen from taxpayers in their home countries.
So now it is time to use the force and cut Russia and Belarus from SWIFT and shut Nord Stream 2 down. And never let a Russian politician or a businessman buy luxury property or store money in your country if you are not sure where it came from. When a country becomes too dependent on Russian money, the Kremlin invades it eventually. The invasion has been already going on in Ukraine and Belarus. If our countries fall, who will be next?
