In a time of economic downturn, the Belarusian authorities fear making any changes to the current political and economic model, which is well regarded in the state press. The Belarusian leadership has rejected market reforms and is resorting to...
On 13 January 2016, Kiryl Rudy, an economic adviser to the Belarusian president and a representative of a young cohort of a pro-reform current within the Belarusian political milieu, suggested a decrease in the duration of maternity leave. Currently...
On 30 January, dozens of Belarusians stood in front of the country’s Higher Court to protest police brutality. They reacted to the harsh beating of two civic activists and a journalist, Pavel Dabravolski of the news site tut.by, inside...
On 22 January, President Alexander Lukashenka approved changes to Belarus' military doctrine. This document reveals fundamental changes in the mindset of the Belarusian establishment. Learning Ukrainian lessons, Minsk is putting issues of military security at the top of its...
Western media focuses on the lifting of sanctions on Belarus by the West, Belarus’s rejection of plans for a Russian air base and heralds the thawing of relations with the West. Observers seem to agree that the temporary sanctions suspension...
Several months after the October presidential elections in Belarus, conservative and Kremlin-affiliated Russian media and commentators have again turned their attention to Belarus. They warn of an alleged rise in "Russophobia" in Belarus, and criticise the West for plotting to...
At the end of 2015 Belarus published a new energy security concept according to which it remains a country with a critical level of energy dependence. 90 per cent of Belarusian energy imports come from a single supplier – Russia....
In December and January the Ostrogorski Centre analysts are busy analysing Minsk's complicated games in foreign policy and security affairs, finalising the most recent issue of the Journal of Belarusian Studies and organising a conference on Belarusian studies. It appears...
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, coupled with Russia's economic decline, has facilitated the separation of Belarusian national identity from all things Russian. The government has made an effort to differentiate Belarus's interests from those of the Kremlin and to...
On 6 January, the Belarusian foreign ministry published an annual review of Belarus’ foreign policy (in Russian only). The document, in bureaucratic lingo, tediously reports on the ministry’s achievements and activities in 2015. Belarus Digest offers its own subjective...
In the Belarusian countryside, the religious holidays of Christmas and Epiphany are fused with pagan “Kalyady” rituals. From late December into January, groups of villagers dress up in costumes and go house-to-house singing traditional “kaliadki” songs, for which they...
Following the full-scale fragmentation after the 2015 presidential election campaign, the Belarusian opposition is starting to unite. Tatsiana Karatkevich, currently quite popular in polls, is rounding up her supporters to enter the 2016 parliamentary elections. Centre-right parties have formed a...
A new initiative of Mova Nanova - Census of Belarusian-speaking Population aims to demonstrate that Belarusian-speaking people exist in all sphere of life all over the country. Minsk Hub has launched a campaign promoting the facilitation of Schengen visa procedures....
On 5 January, Russia declared that Belarusian firms would get direct access to Russia's military procurement orders. It this really happens, it will mean that Russia has completed the process of replacing Belarusian components with Russian ones. Minsk is looking...
