Arkady Moshes: With People Like Lukashenko, You Can't Do It Any Other Way

The West has critically changed its approach to the dicator.

In an interview with "Filin", Director of the EU Eastern Neighborhood and Russia Research Program at the Finnish Institute of International Relations Arkadi Moshes spoke about why, in his opinion, one should not make concessions with Lukashenko's regime.

- The plan proposed by Pavel Matsukevich is quite elaborate. Nevertheless, the mechanism of its implementation is not clear to me," Arkady Moshes points out.

As a number of experts, Moshes points to the lack of motivation of the West, particularly the EU, in contacts with Lukashenko:

- They see that he has released a number of people over the past year, they welcome it. But immediately he has recruited new political prisoners. The repression continues. Some people are still being held incommunicado.

- After the release process began, the positions on tactics especially have diverged dramatically. Some, like Matsukevich, are of the opinion that it is necessary to go along with the regime and soften sanctions. While Tikhanovska said the day before that it is impossible to stop the pressure. What point of view do you hold?

- I am also in favor of continuing to pressurize the regime and have never changed my point of view.

I believe that what we have now is the result of the pressure policy. With people like Lukashenko, it won't work any other way.

I don't like it when opposing Tikhanovskaya, they touch upon her personal history, saying that her husband was released, the rest will sit. I want to emphasize that she has always held this position - even before Sergei's release, and she has not changed it.

I'm not in favor of making concessions with the regime also because a significant part of Belarusians, who participated in the events of 2020, are still interested in seeing justice prevail.

If this whole machine, which beat, tortured and abused people, is left unpunished, nothing will change. This issue cannot be taken off the agenda, we cannot "turn the page".

In my opinion, it is the policy of isolation that bears fruit. It makes Lukashenko jump, spin around, propose something. This is not a policy of forgiveness, not a policy of dialog with Lukashenko, not the result of a single visit, but, on the contrary, the result of consistent actions of isolation.

Lukashenko realizes that he has to do something to be noticed. He had to put a big trump card on the table for someone to come and listen to him.

And only the continuation of such a policy will probably lead to some shifts.

The main reason for the tough position of the European Union, the political scientist believes, is that the West has finally drawn a conclusion from the mistakes made in the past.

- In 2015, there were quite a lot of those who were ready to lobby the Belarusian agenda, who were ready to take the initiative to take steps towards Lukashenko.

That is, the West has already passed the "friendship" with the dictator. They could not crush him for what happened in 2010, and in 2015 they ran to make peace. And it became a perfect excuse for Putin to pursue a tough and unyielding policy.

Therefore, as far as I understand, there is no talk of concessions from the European Union anymore. The West has critically changed its approach to Belarus.

Yes, among the arguments after 2010 there was also a desire to help Belarus not to fall into complete 100% subordination to Russia.

But it turned out to be an absolutely erroneous approach, all these joint summits, meetings, visits - strategically they have not changed anything. And Moscow looked at their movements very calmly, even with a chuckle.

Because Belarus has fallen into even greater dependence on the Kremlin in recent years anyway.

- You don't believe that if you fulfill all or part of the points in Matsukevich's step-by-step instructions, Lukashenko will release most or all political prisoners?

- No, I don't believe it. Such regimes don't behave like that. There should be a big footnote in the margin here: if you make such concessions for Lukashenko, it will again become a serious argument for Putin to behave in the same way.

And that is to say, do what you want, because the West will express deep concern, maybe even dissatisfaction, but sooner or later will give up and, due to political or economic interests, will run to make peace again.

Everything that has happened between Russia and Ukraine since 2014, in my opinion, is due to this position.

I have to make a caveat about the "collective West" because Trump is unpredictable. His administration can make decisions whose consequences they themselves will not understand.

Europe has a more structured approach at the moment. I think that they no longer have any inflated expectations.

Because a significant part of Europeans have finally realized who they are dealing with in the person of Lukashenko - an experienced, cunning, stubborn politician.

That is why they do not see a successful end to any negotiation saga. But that is the second thing. And the first is that the perception of how deep in Putin's pocket Lukashenko sits today is fundamentally different from what it was in 2015.

There was a debate then. Most European politicians were, as he said, wrong. But they wanted to try concession tactics and they tried them as late as 2020.

Now until November 2020, Lukashenko personally was not under sanctions! I think it was a big advance for him.

After that, the points of no return happened - the airplane, the migrants, and finally, there was a co-aggression. And it became a very serious shift in the perception of Lukashenko's regime as something autonomous and separate.

For example, Matsukevich suggests, let's invite Western observers to the West-2025 exercises. Does he think Russia will agree to this?

Another important factor. In 2015, some political prisoners were indeed released, but they were not rehabilitated. And this was a demand of the West.

That is, he already then found himself in the position of a widow who whipped himself when he first made demands to the regime for release and rehabilitation, and then agreed that not everyone was released and no one was rehabilitated.

And after Europe burned its fingers badly last time, I repeat, there are only a few people who are ready to lobby for reducing the degree of conflict in relations with Belarus.

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