November and December events clearly show that Russia's policies towards Belarus are dictated primarily not by economic considerations but political. Russia is willing to spend billions of dollars in subsidies to keep the status quo in Belarus.  The European Union, on the other hand, is more and more busy with its own problems, the most important of which is the crisis of the Eurozone.  In the coming year, Russia will increase the amount of economic support to Lukashenka's regime. Apart from the significant discount in the gas price, the Belarusian side will benefit from refining larger volume of Russian crude oil.

This months's notable events included the Green Christmas initiative, which urged Belarusians to give a second life to old things and make an original Christmas gift. Belarusian ATMs may soon have a "kind button" to make charitable donations.  Important cultural events included celebration of anniversary of Belarusian Philosophy Space and Rock Solidarity campaign.   Social  Green Christmas. On December 22, the Center for Environmental Solutions organized Green Christmas event. The idea is to give a second life to old things and make an original Christmas gift. One can bring old clothes and materials and together with the designers give them a new life. If desired, each participant has a possibility to pass his/her presents to children's home. 

The return of generous Russian subsidies to Belarus and the death penalty to the alleged Belarusian terrorists were among the most discussed topics discussed by Belarusian analysts. Other issues incuded migration of young Belarusians and problems of Belarusian political parties with attracting new activists.   Getting the rents back in. Russia’s new bail-out of Belarus – BISS analysts Alexei Pikulik and Dzianis Melyantsou describe some reasons for Russia bailing-out Belarus now. Experts consider that "the 2011 battle for a democratic Belarus is lost, but the war is not". It means that Belarus is being dragged into the sphere of Russia's influence and the Eurasian Union will be on the agenda for the coming years. Although that does not mean the fully-fledged political absorption of Belarus into Russia, the West should redefine its strategy and recognize the facts that in order to democratize Belarus it has to offer unprecedented incentives to the country.

In the regime of Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka, even absolute loyalty fails to guarantee security and comfort. Last week, a military court sentenced General Ihar Azaronak to nine years in prison. The former commander of the Belarusian air force and air defense was arrested immediately after the fraudulent presidential election a year ago. The fact that the arrest coincided with the elections provoked much speculation. But in issuing its verdict, the Military Prosecution Office quite expectedly did not cite political details, instead charging Azaronak with corruption. Because the trial was closed to the public, and the Belarusian media was unable to investigate, the details of the case remain obscure, as do the details of another recent high profile case.

Last month the Belarusian youth web site generation.by published a diagram showing that 2/3 of European Humanities University (EHU) graduates do not return to Belarus after completing their studies. According to generation.by, the data came from a poll of 2011 graduates of bachelors' programs published on the EHU website. The university described this information as false and explained that it was a mistake by their website administrator.  This has raised a heated discussion in Belarus in which many questioned whether it was a good idea to spend Western money to help people to leave Belarus. The argument is that the very reason for the existence of the EHU is to raise and nurture a new Belarusian elite rather than to stimulate immigration. 

On 16 December two Belarusian citizens were added to the EU visa ban list, and EU assets of three companies associated with the Belarusian regime were frozen. The European Union continues to impose different sanctions on Belarus at the request of human rights activists. However, this policy fails to provide the EU with additional leverage in the country. Today the EU can neither offer Belarus the prospect of EU membership nor significantly increase the amount of Eastern Partnership funding. If the Union wants Belarus to be more pro-European, it should try to develop a new engagement policy as Russia is steadily increasing its influence in Belarus with far-reaching political and economic consequences.

With Ales Bialiatskiy named a human rights defender of the year by the Human Rights Alliance, the government continued to exert pressure on civil society activists resulting in a number of arrests in the regions. The West continued to mount pressure on Belarusian government with EU’s expanded sanctions and the US Senate’s passing of amendments to the Democracy and Human Rights Act.      Detained businessman Autuhovich attempted to commit suicide. According to human rights activists, on 15 December the businessman convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for an alleged preparation of a terrorist attack and possession of ammunition attempted to slash his own wrists in a prison colony in the Brest region. This accident is said to be the result of the pressure imposed on him on behalf of colony’s staff urging to cooperate and sign the appropriate documents acknowledging his guilt. Belarusian human rights groups Viasna and BHC regard Autukhovich as one of eleven political prisoners.

Although the level of academic freedom in Belarus is far from desirable, the country's integration into the European Higher Education Process would greatly benefit a new generation of Belarusians and should be encouraged by European policymakers.  On 12 December 2011 the Bologna Working Group reviewed the application of the Ministry of Education of Belarus to join the European Higher Education Area (the Bologna Process). The group will announce its opinion during the Ministerial Summit of the Bologna Process member states on 26-27 April 2012. If the application is successful, then Belarus may discontinue being the last ‘non-Bologna’ state of Europe.

Yesterday a former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich found himself on an INTERPOL blacklist. The Polish authorities had briefly detained him in the Warsaw airport before they found out that he was put on the list by Belarusian authorities who had targeted him for his political activities in Belarus. Mikhalevich was released after the intervention of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  As this digest of recent developments show, Belarusian authorities and the European Union use their respective blacklists to restrict "undesired" individuals.  Although Belarusian authorities usually make it easy to exit Belarus, they want to keep certain foreign journalists, NGO activists and politicians out of the country. Inside Belarus, they blacklist undesirable rock groups to prevent them from performing in public and restrict activities of Western NGOs and local opposition activists. The West, on the other hand, imposes travel bans  and asset freezes against those whom they see as playing an active role in human rights violations in Belarus.

In Russia's recent elections to the State Duma the ruling United Russia party won. The Russian opposition claims that the authorities falsified the results in favour of Putin's party. Similar to Belarusian authorities, the Kremlin put pressure on independent observers, falsified the results to a certain degree and temporarily blocked independent sources of information. But overall the Russian elections and handling of post-election protests were much more democratic than in Belarus. What kind of changes will these elections bring to Russian politics and what consequences will they have for Belarus? Although the elections and post-election protests were an important political development for Russia itself, they will not be a game changer for Belarus-Russia relations. However, Russia's policy towards Belarus may change following presidential elections in 2012. 

On December 1, Belarus and Latvia took a new step toward opening up their common border. They signed a local border traffic agreement allowing their residents to visit each other's border regions for up to 90 days every six months without visas. One could argue the achievement is modest: the eligible regions span no more than 30-50 km and visitors cannot travel to other parts of the host country or work there. Belarus gains little when compared to the Eastern European states that joined the EU and now enjoy Brussels' regulatory and funding support. However, the agreement with Latvia is significant in other ways. Given Belarus's difficult experience with Europe, it represents a small step towards establishing normal communication with neighboring countries. More importantly, Lukashenka's ambivalent attitude toward local border traffic agreements underlines their broader political significance.

Despite unfavourable environment, Belarusian NGOs continue to launch various initiatives and campaigns in Belarus. Most of initiatives relate to education, human rights and social issues. However, conferences on political issues have to take place outside of the country - in Vilnius and Brussels because often authorities prevent them from taking place in Belarus.  International Events  US Secretary of State meets with Belarusian civil society delegation. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with a delegation of Belarusian civil society in Vilnius on December 06, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Ms Clinton said that the United States and the European Union would fight Lukashenka's regime through sanctions and travel bans.

The Belarusian government spent the whole year actively looking for money to sustain the collapsing socio-economic model. It was looked for everywhere: in the West and the East, in Europe, Asia and Latin America, at the IMF and EurAsEC. And over the last several weeks finally Belarus managed to get a big chunk of foreign loans. The biggest ‘gift’ came from Russia as a reward for Minsk’s support of the new wave of post-Soviet integration. Now that the hard currency reserves have become thicker the government can take it easier for some time. But how long can the strategy of surviving on foreign loans last? Already next year the Belarusian taxpayers will feel the burden of the debt.

The latest agreements with Russia have saved the Belarusian regime at the most critical point in its existence. Now Minsk has to pay a big price for it by giving Russia more leverage in Belarus. But it had no choice: this summer and autumn Lukashenka's state was in its most precarious position since the 1996 coup d'etat. Only the weakness of the opposition let it survive. Meanwhile, the hard times have demonstrated cracks in the Belarusian establishment. Since the late 1990s, nothing of this kind has ever happened. If some high-ranking official challenged regime policies – for example, Kazulin or Marynich – he first left for the opposition. In the last two months, however, the 'rebels' managed to stay in their positions. The hot topic was economic policy.