At the end of January, Belarus temporally mobilised nearly 15,000 reservists - a large number for the nearly 50,000-strong national army. A major Russian news portal Gazeta.ru linked this move to the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. At the same...
Last week, Belarusian officials made an unprecedented series of statements in support of Belarusian language and culture. One after another, the President, information and education ministers and the Chairman of Constitutional Court spoke up on the issue at prominent...
On 27 December, Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka appointed Alyaksandr Kosinets as the head of the Presidential Administration. In less than a decade, Kosinets rose from the position of dean of a provincial university to one of the top offices in...
Last Wednesday, Russia's ambassador to Minsk announced that Belarusian enterprises provide 15% of Russia's national defence purchases (oboronzakaz). This figure may grow — Moscow promised to transfer the orders it had with Ukrainian firms to Belarusians. Yet Russia is...
On 6 November, President Lukashenka appointed a new mayor to the nation's capital. The appointee Andrei Shorats (41) represents a new generation of state officials. Most of his life passed in independent Belarus. He and Andrei Shved...
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...
Last week Chief of the Russian Air Force Viktor Bondarev announced that a Russian airbase would be established in Babruysk in 2016. An article from the Moscow Times on expanding the Russian air force presence abroad, subsequently reprinted in...
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...
On 4 September, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka signed a decree establishing security zones alongside the border with Russia. The measure targets illegal migration, drug trafficking, as well as the illicit movement of goods across the border. Until now, the Belarus-Russia...
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei headed to South Africa and Nigeria for a round of meetings. After losing its partners in the Middle East and at the time when relations with Latin America are stagnating, Belarus is seeking new...
Without any loud political rhetoric to bolster the Belarusian army, it has nonetheless gradually developed from an appendage cut off of the huge Soviet military into an army more adapted to the needs and capacities of a 9.5-million nation. Belarus...
On 24 July, Russian Ambassador Alexander Surikov revealed Moscow's proposal to Minsk to take over production of several thousand new components used by the Russian defence industry. Russian official openly stated that the conflict in Ukraine was the issue standing...
Last week, the Ministry of Transport of Belarus and the Belavia national air carrier revealed that they have been negotiating with Boeing. Minsk is proposing to Boeing that it participates in the reconstruction of the Minsk aircraft repair plant and...
Belarusians resemble Ukrainians in many respects, but they do not exhibit any kind of the politically relevant dualism between western and eastern regions, which greatly contributed to the recent Ukrainian events. The urge to find the same patterns in different countries...
The Crimean crisis stirred up a number of comments on the probability of Russian annexation of Belarus. The topic is not completely new. Since the 1990s, fears of Russia taking over Belarus – under pretext of integration process - were one of...