The presidential elections in Belarus in August 2020 and their aftermath have been a turning point in relations between Belarus and the West. While the EU had criticized and sanctioned the repressive policies of the Lukashenko regime in the past, this time the situation is markedly different. This is due to the emergence of a determined and largely co-ordinated opposition, the strength of the popular protests and the level of repression and brutality employed by the regime. As a result, relations between Belarus and the West have soured, the EU has imposed a series of sanctions and Belarus has suspended its participation in the EU’s Eastern Partnership.

At the same time the crisis has pushed Lukashenko closer towards the Russian Federation, which has helped him stay in power through political, financial and other forms of assistance. However, this support comes at a price. To the outside world Lukashenko and Putin are now stalwart allies, but behind the scenes long-standing differences and tensions remain. Belarus is under pressure to integrate further with the Russian Federation within the context of the Union State of Russia and Belarus (hereinafter: “Union State”), a hitherto largely dormant set of treaties from the 1990s. Although the crisis has been caused by domestic factors, there is nonetheless a strong geopolitical overlay. As such, it poses further complications for the already strained relations between Russia and the EU and NATO.

While Lukashenko is clearly playing for time and has managed to cling on to power, both the fate of his regime and the degree of further integration into the Union State remain uncertain. The different possible outcomes, ranging from a more pro-Western change of course to further incorporation into the Russian Federation, will have far-reaching ramifications for the European Union and NATO. In order to help Western policymakers better prepare for and respond to different outcomes, this report analyses the geopolitical, economic and security dimensions of the crisis in Belarus and will identify a number of scenarios for the country’s situation in 2023, in particular vis-à-vis its future relationship with the Russian Federation within the Union State.

In chapter 2 this report will first look into the legal and political background of the Union State and place its development in the context of other Russian-led integration processes in the post-Soviet space. Chapter 3 will then assess the geopolitical dimension of the crisis, including the interests of the Lukashenko regime, the Russian Federation and the West. Chapter 4 will analyse the security dimension of the Union State and the role of both NATO and the Belarusian and Russian militaries. Chapter 5 will look more closely into the Belarusian economy and its dependencies on both Russia and the EU, including the economic impact of Belarus’ participation in the Union State and Eurasian Economic Union and the sanctions imposed by the European Union. For these chapters the researchers have based their research on a mix of literature review and interviews. They have specifically drawn on contributions by three external experts on specific political, economic and security aspects of the crisis, which have been annexed to the present report.[1]

Chapter 6 will then bring these political, security and economic factors together by building a scenario framework around a number of key uncertainties, in line with the Clingendael scenario methodology.[2] This chapter builds on an expert workshop held in April 2021, where a number of country experts first constructed six scenarios and then analysed the political, economic and security implications of four of them. While the report does not aim to predict and evaluate the likelihood of these different scenarios, it will compare each of them to the objectives of the key actors and thus give an indication of the potential pathways out of this crisis. The report concludes with a number of policy recommendations for the European Union and NATO.