How Do You Solve a Problem Like Belarus?

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it used neighboring Belarus as a springboard for its brutal assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. In response, the United States and European Union imposed punitive financial sanctions on dozens of Belarusians, tightening the noose around the country’s war machine and choking off access to the international financial system. 

But with the second anniversary of the war looming, international efforts to isolate Belarus have had little effect. The country’s strongman president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has moved only further into the orbit of Russian President Vladimir Putin, becoming one of his most dependable allies even as other leaders in the region have pulled away.

Financial sanctions have rarely forced an about-turn in a country’s foreign policy—at least not quickly. But the saga underscores the impenetrable challenge posed by Belarus, the increasingly troublesome but often overlooked dictatorship on NATO’s doorstep that no one quite knows what to do with. 

After years of stagnation, the United States is now looking for an answer to that question with the appointment of a new special envoy for Belarus, filling a position that has remained vacant for more than a year. The State Department is set to announce the appointment of Chris Smith, who currently serves as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Eastern Europe, as special envoy, according to three people familiar with the decision, first reported by Foreign Policy. Smith is to be based in Washington, while a new deputy envoy, career diplomat Peter Kaufman, will be based in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The U.S. Embassy in Minsk suspended operations in the country days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment for this story.

News of the appointment was welcomed by former U.S. officials and Belarusian scholars, who hoped that it could bump Belarus back up the agenda in Washington and Europe. “There are lots of special envoys, but talk about a place that really needs one—its Belarus,” said Scott Rauland, who served as acting U.S. ambassador to Belarus during the Obama administration. 

While Smith and Kaufman both work on Belarus in their current roles, the appointment to special envoy and deputy will allow them a singular focus on the country and the freedom to shuttle between the European capitals central to the West’s Belarus policy: Vilnius, Warsaw, and Brussels. “You can be where the action is,” Rauland said. 

In a region where the war in Ukraine and Russian malfeasance tend to suck up most of the oxygen, the role will also empower them to try to make Belarus a bigger priority in both Washington and European capitals. “The attention deficit is the biggest challenge,” said Artyom Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. 

The pair face a Sisyphean task ahead, and any progress is likely to be incremental at best. One area of focus is likely to be supporting the country’s civil society and democratic leadership in exile, including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who rose from obscurity to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election. 

For decades, the Belarusian leader sought to play Russia and the West off each other, relying on Moscow for hefty oil subsidies to prop up its ailing state-dominated economy while occasionally making eyes at Europe when Russia got too handsy. Belarusian analysts have long accused Western governments of not having a proactive enough policy toward their country. 

“The West, in particular the EU, does not have a coherent strategy outward Belarus. The West has a reactionary approach—when something happens, they introduce sanctions,” said Katsiaryna Shmatsina, a researcher at Virginia Tech. 

But sanctions did offer a limited ability to move the needle on human rights. In 2015, Lukashenko pardoned the country’s then-last remaining political prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief from the United States and Europe as the country’s economy faltered. A relative thaw followed during the Trump administration, as U.S. officials sought to delicately peel Minsk further away from Moscow, which culminated in visits from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton and a 2019 agreement to exchange ambassadors for the first time in more than a decade. 

That window of opportunity slammed shut in 2020, when unprecedented street protests over rigged presidential elections were met with a violent and widespread crackdown that was equally without precedent. There are now nearly 1,500 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus, according to the Belarusian rights group Viasna. Among them is Tsikhanouskaya’s husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, whom she has been unable to contact since March. 

As Lukashenko faced the biggest threat to his grip on power after more than a quarter century, Putin came to his aid to bolster the regime, leaving the Belarusian president forever in his debt. The two countries have since deepened their ties, chipping away at Belarus’s sovereignty in the process. Supporters of the regime have endorsed a range of measures to water down Belarusian national identity, including the removal of certain historical books from state-run bookstores. 

After fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner mounted a short-lived rebellion against Moscow in June, Lukashenko stepped in to broker an end to the mutiny and welcomed Wagner’s troops to Belarus. “The dependency on Russia increases every month,” said Shraibman, the Carnegie scholar. 

With Minsk fully beholden to Moscow, Russia was able to launch its assault on northern Ukraine, including Kyiv, from Belarus, along with countless Russian missiles. In May, the two countries signed a deal that would see Russian tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus—although it is unclear whether they have yet been deployed. 

Any progress on the Belarus portfolio is likely to be extremely limited as long as Putin remains in power; he views the country as a vital buffer between Russia and the West. 

For all the international efforts underway to try to secure Ukraine’s future, including a breakthrough deal this week that could see Ukraine one day join the EU, Belarusian opposition leaders often note that Ukraine, which shares a large stretch of border with Belarus, will always be vulnerable as long as its northern neighbor remains a vassal state of Russia. 

Belarus’s fate will also be decided by how the war in Ukraine ends. Like Ukraine, Belarus is also a core part of Putin’s messianic vision to resurrect the Russian empire. 

“It very much depends on the fallout of the war and how its ends and in what shape Russia will be,” Shraibman said. “If Russia is strong enough and imperialistic enough to want to control Belarus, there is not much that the West or the Belarusian opposition can do about it. So we are pretty much hostage to the strength of the Russian state.”

FP staff writer Robbie Gramer contributed to this piece.