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 Belarus allow mothers to take time off work for three years, with their workplace secured. This is the longest paid maternity leave in the post-Soviet space. Rudy argued that reducing the paid maternity leave to two years instead of three would lead to annual growth of GDP by 2.3 per cent.
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 a Minsk court building five days earlier. The recent scandal, just one of many incidents of police excesses in Belarus, has attracted public attention and encouraged other victims of police brutality to speak out. Belarusian police often threaten rather than protect the public, a fact that has become especially evident of late. While police misconduct occurs in democratic and non-democratic states alike, the lack of respect for human and civil rights in Belarus is also to blame for the excessive use of force. In spite of efforts to reform policing, the country’s police force is inordinately large, frequently acts with impunity, and is little trusted by the population at large.
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 priority list. Belarusian strategists have also identified which threats are to be countered. They include violent political changes, which Minsk suspects may come from Ukraine and pro-Moscow forces' attempts to repeat in Belarus their exploits in Ukraine.
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 for Belarus is due to “strategic concerns” overcoming “humanitarian ones” In other news: Belarusian journalist convicted for the “illegal dissemination of media products" and market traders protest controversial new imports rules. All this and more in the newest edition of the Western Press Digest.
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 tear the country away from Russia. The last such attack took place in late 2014 but then faded as the Belarusian presidential elections approached. With Russia's economy in trouble and the regime of President Alexander Lukashenka seeking rapprochement with the West, Kremlin pressure on Belarus may increase.
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. Moreover, a third of export revenue is traditionally generated by refining Russian oil. The authorities prefer to retain the status-quo as an easier and conflictless strategy, but the need to strengthen statehood will sooner or later require a solution to this deep problem.
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 that Belarus continues to cooperate with Ukraine on the issues where Belarus can gain financially and technologically, while keeping its distance from aggressive Russian foreign policy. Minsk has also managed to win the standoff over a Russian air base in Belarus.
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 wean the country off Russia's military and economic support. Some new members of the political elite have even demonstrated a willingness to collaborate with civil society representatives and to reform the Belarusian economy. Liberals in the government are increasingly open to dialogue with independent economists.
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 summary of Belarusian diplomats’ most notable successes and failures in the past year in a "top ten" format. In most cases, the results were mixed, however. Getting the sanctions suspended. In October, the European Union suspended for four months its restrictive measures against many Belarusian companies and individuals. In coordination with the EU, the United States also provided a six-month long reprieve from sanctions for nine major petrochemical enterprises.
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 are rewarded with treats. The motley cast of Kalyady characters usually includes “Kaza” (the goat), a symbol of fertility and energy, as well as “Kon” (the horse), Baba” (the old woman), “Dzied” (the old man), and “Tsygan” (the gypsy). The crowd moves from east to west, following the sun, and knocks at every door. Each visit consists of three parts: greeting the masters of the house, performing traditional games and songs, and receiving edible treats.
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 coalition. Street protests leader Mikola Statkevich is trying to gather other opposition groups around the idea of a new congress that is supposed to lay down a new united strategy. However, mistrust among leaders, a lack of human resources, political apathy among the population and the evident strength of the Belarusian authoritarian regime still undermine the prospect of success for the opposition in the foreseeable future.
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. Now every Belarusian can sign the Free to Move e-petition. Sviatlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel laureate, was awarded with “The Civil Leader of the Year”.
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 to diversify its links in the military sphere. Recently, it continued working with China and Pakistan, and may even have made a deal with Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Belarus faces ever bigger repercussions from the war in eastern Ukraine. Minsk is suppressing important information on these consequences. Only recently local authorities revealed the dramatic growth in weapons trafficking in the southern regions of the country.
On 15 January 2016, the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenka commented on the refugee crisis in the EU, noting that the latter is “drowning in the streams of migrants, accompanied with terror and criminality.” The numbers of the asylum seekers from the Middle East in Belarus remains rather modest, as Belarus is difficult to reach and is not a particularly wealthy country. On the other hand, Belarus remains an attractive option for Ukrainians, who can easily integrate into the Belarusian society. As a result, Belarus was able to boast a controlled and regulated migration process.