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Repression at Home Fuels Aggression Abroad: Now Is Not the Time to Ease Up on Lukashenka [1]
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Date: 2025-09
On June 21, Alyaksandr Lukashenka beamed as he embraced US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg, in Minsk. Hours later, the Belarusian president announced the release of 14 political prisoners—reportedly a result of negotiations with Kellogg’s delegation. A few weeks later, US president Donald Trump publicly thanked Lukashenka for the prisoners’ release and urged him to release the rest. A dictator starved of legitimacy suddenly looked like a man back in the diplomatic game.
However, Lukashenka is neither a good-faith actor nor a friend to the United States. He violently represses his own people, enables and participates in the Kremlin’s illegal war against Ukraine, and regularly threatens European security and, by extension, US national security interests. Engaging in business-as-usual dealings with Lukashenka is a mistake that incentivizes bad behavior and removes the very policy lever that enables political prisoner releases. He must be held accountable for all his abuses.
Repression at home and aggression abroad
Before aiding aggression against Ukraine, Lukashenka had long waged repression at home. More than a thousand political prisoners are detained in Belarus’s jails, most of whom have languished there since challenging the result of the fraudulent 2020 election, when Lukashenka fabricated his own victory. As political prisoners are released, policymakers must remember that this regime in particular employs a so-called revolving door of political imprisonment, when those released are simply replaced by new detainees. In June 2025, for example, after Lukashenka released 14 political prisoners after his summit with Kellogg, the Nobel Prize–winning Belarusian human rights organization Viasna recorded an additional 67 instances of political repression by authorities that month, including detention and searches. Nine political prisoners have now died in custody, and the number of politically motivated convictions since 2020 has ballooned to 7,100. Lukashenka effectively uses these human lives as bargaining chips, seeking concessions and sanctions relief from the US and European governments—while simultaneously inking military and other pacts with Putin’s Russia.
Too often it is the case that repression against one’s own people is a precursor for foreign aggression. The same authoritarian machinery that jails activists at home enables the Kremlin’s aggression abroad, fueling and sustaining Moscow’s war. Lukashenka offered Belarusian territory to the Russian military to serve as a staging ground for the invasion of northern Ukraine, in which Russian forces captured towns and cities across the Ukrainian regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Zhytomyr. Following Russian troops’ withdrawal from Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, and other suburbs of Kyiv, the world was horrified by evidence of war crimes, including mass execution, torture, and rape of civilians by Russian personnel. Although the northern offensive ultimately failed, Russian missile strikes from Belarusian territory targeted civilians and nonmilitary assets in a systematic terror campaign through October 2022. To this day, Russian forces, missile systems, and tactical nuclear weapons remain stationed in Belarus and the two countries routinely hold military exercises, underscoring Minsk’s alignment with Moscow and posing an ongoing threat to Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
In a further, chilling development, Freedom House and our partners have obtained direct evidence that Belarusian authorities including Lukashenka himself engaged in the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children to locations in Belarus. There, they are subject to systematic indoctrination and militarization aimed at destroying their Ukrainian identity. The issue has been raised with Putin by US First Lady Melania Trump. Our 2024 investigation found that Lukashenka personally signed off on plans that resulted in the forcible relocation of more than 2,200 identified Ukrainian children, a war crime under international law.
Belarus’s economy and military are largely dependent on Russia, and while Belarus is not an appendage to Russia, Lukashenka has walked in lockstep with Putin as he works to undermine the United States and its allies. Among other violations he has attempted to weaponize migration against America’s allies, allowed Russian drones to cross Belarusian borders into NATO territory, and forcibly diverted civilian aircraft, placing military and civil aviation at risk. History will remember Lukashenka not as a great leader, but as a dictator who turned Belarus into a pariah state.
Accountability for a dictator
As the United States and European allies continue to pursue a negotiated end to Russia’s unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine, Freedom House urges policymakers to get creative. Lukashenka must be held accountable for his complicity in and enabling of Putin’s war, and for continued widespread repression in Belarus.
Democratic governments have already levied isolating sanctions against Lukashenka’s regime for these violations. In exchange for any sanctions relief, which the regime is clearly seeking with the recent release of political prisoners, the US and European governments should require Lukashenka to meet the following conditions.
Remove all Russian nuclear assets and military personnel from Belarusian territory. If Moscow insists that Ukraine must remain free of foreign troops, then Ukraine and its allies have the right to demand the removal of Russian forces from Belarus and to establish the automatic return of sanctions and other punitive measures from the US and Europe should they return. The Kremlin cannot dictate that Ukraine remain unarmed while it retains the capability to use Belarus as a launchpad for aggression.
Unconditionally release all political prisoners in Belarus, dropping charges against them and permitting them to remain in the country. Prioritize on humanitarian grounds the approximately 250 political prisoners in need of urgent medical care. Any released political prisoners should have all charges against them dropped and should not be forced into exile, which could constitute forcible displacement under international law.
Contribute monetarily to reconstruction in northern Ukraine , where communities were devastated by the Russian military’s 2022 northern invasion, which was enabled by Lukashenka and launched from Belarusian soil.
Provide compensation in accordance with international law to victims of domestic repression, including thousands of political prisoners and their families.
Democratic governments should additionally consider the following recommendations:
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[1] Url:
https://freedomhouse.org/article/repression-home-fuels-aggression-abroad-now-not-time-ease-lukashenka
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