On 9 November 2014 in Pastavy - a city in the Vitebsk Region of Belarus – members of the Holy Rus' Movement distributed flyers with a call for the unification of the 'Russian World'. Many similar events and military...
At first glance, Belarus may appear to be a Communist state thanks to its overt fondness of the Soviet Union and its soviet-red tinged state flag. In practise, however, the country has little to do with the far-left ideology. On...
On 25 October, Norway celebrated the anniversary of its liberation by the Soviets from German occupation in 1944. In commemoration of this important day, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg hosted Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Norway. Neither Belarusian nor Ukrainian...
Everyone knows that the Belarusian opposition has had little chance of being elected since the late 1990s. Repression against the opposition continues to turn up more frequently in the news than their own actions, particularly given the Western public's...
Three weeks ago Belarus Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei presented the country's multilateral initiatives in the general debate of the 69th session of the UN General Assembly. The United Nations remains Belarus' preferred tool for promoting its foreign...
According to a leaked document published by TUT.BY this week, the Belarusian parliament will insert its own special clause when it ratifies the Treaty of the Eurasian Economic Union. The clause will reserve the country’s right to ignore its treaty...
On 16 September local authorities closed an exhibition entitled “West Belarusian Atlantis” in Zaslauye near Minsk. The author of the project, Ihar Melnikau, dedicated the exhibition to Belarusians in the Polish army in the 1939 Polish-German campaign and to...
The Ukraine crisis has revitalised, if not improved, US-Belarus relations. Due to his careful stance on the Ukrainian conflict as well as Vladimir Putin’s careless actions in the Crimea, Alexandr Lukashenka is no longer the main villain on the post-Communist...
On 28-29 August the head of Belarusian diplomacy, Uladzimir Makiej, met with the top Polish officials in Warsaw. The war in Ukraine and Russia’s self-imposed isolation can bring Belarusand Poland closer together. Following the Russian ban on food from EU countries,...
On 9 September chief of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees mission in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Oldrich Andrysek reported that Belarus accepted more than 25,000 Ukrainian citizens over the last two months. In 2013, only 2,200 Ukrainians made their way...
The Kremlin’s war in Ukraine and the rise of Russian authoritarianism have made it clear that Belarus is neither the only dictatorship in Europe, nor the worst of them. While Lukashenka's authoritarianism causes problems primarily for Belarusians, Putin is now...
Last week Mikalai Statkievich, a former presidential candidate, stated from prison that the Belarusian opposition needs to choose a single candidate for the presidential election from a pool of people with serious politically-motivated convictions. His comments come...
On 26 August, Minsk was the centre of attention for the international community, attracting hundreds of international reporters. The Belarusian authorities hosted a meeting between the Eurasian "troika", the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and three EU commissioners. The very fact...
On 11-12 August the Belarusian authorities announced three upcoming legislative initiatives – all intended to complicate the life of state officials. They include a new anti-corruption law, an abrupt reduction in the number of civil servants and a presidential decree,...
