Belarus in Upheaval: Three Scenarios

Author(s): Benno Zogg
Editor(s): Brian Carlson
Series: CSS Policy Perspectives
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich
Publication Year: 2021

As Alexander Lukashenko has become a toxic figure at home and abroad, three scenarios for the regime’s future are perceptible. Each has important foreign policy implications, and Russia is key in all of them, argues Benno Zogg in this CSS Policy Perspective. Three scenarios are foreseeable: a managed revolution removing Lukashenko, a dictatorship following the current trajectory, and a managed transition as a most likely long-term scenario. In the long run, the West may come to terms with a new Belarusian government. But this will mean finding a delicate balance between targeted sanctions and support for civil society, while avoiding East-West polarization.

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