Sometime between 11-16 March, the two men accused of planting a bomb on the Minsk underground were executed with a bullet to the back of the head. Amid suspicions that the Belarusian authorities may in fact have been behind the original explosion, their show trial and subsequent killing leave us w
This Monday marked a year since Belarusians staged a peaceful protest (brutally suppressed) against rigged presidential elections. Although the regime has not been overturned, and the economy has managed to teeter on collapse without fully imploding, it is clear that Belarusian politics are now in
Recent Russian protests against a stolen election were on the whole peaceful and well-policed. At similar protests in Minsk in December 2010, the Belarus police over-reacted, resulting in beatings and imprisonment for many of the demonstrators. Strong Russian support for the Lukashenka regime coul
Next Monday marks the anniversary of Belarus' disgraceful 2010 elections, which led to a brutal campaign of intimidation, imprisonment, violence and torture against opponents of the regime. Last month, Nikolaj Nielsen travelled to Minsk — still pincered between paranoia and fear — to talk to the b
‘Ales’ Pushkin shares his name with Russia’s most famous poet, but is a very different kind of iconic figure. A restorer of church frescos, contemporary performance artist and nationalist political dissident, Pushkin is a surprising product of life in Belarus, ‘the only European country where the
A failed economic model and falling transit subsidies from Russia have propelled the Belarusian economy to the brink. The harsh reality of stopgap sales and emergency loans that awaits will only delay the inevitable, writes David Marples.
Ukraine is busy absorbing the news that opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has been arrested under corruption charges. Most analysts consider the process to be politically motivated, and part of a strategy of power consolidation by the ruling Party of the Regions. Dmitri Travin asks if this means
Belarus is gripped by economic crisis, its people discontented, its government trapped by inertia. The depth of the problem requires no less in response - a degree of imagination and self-confidence sufficient to remodel the nation, says Natalia Leshchenko.
Effective opposition in Belarus has traditionally been limited by a limited sense of nationhood, a deeply controlled society and a social contract that exchanges rights for “stability”. The country’s deepening financial crisis undermines all three of these pillars. Could it be that the time for ch
Europe’s last dictator struggles for his survival. Europe should help the process along by applying targeted sanctions
A dramatic devaluation of the national currency has combined with international isolation to plunge the usually reliable Belarus deep in a sea of instability. The crisis is unlikely to seriously threaten President Lukashenka's position, says David Marples. But the country may yet have to pay a hig
Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl disaster, Barys Piatrovich recalls the tension of unknowing that gripped him and those around him during the days that followed. Today, barely any of the Chernobyl evacuees are still alive. Spread throughout the country, they died alone and unnoticed, statisti
