The Independent: A peace deal without Belarus risks Rus­sian annex­a­tion

VALERY TSEPKALO 
DMITRY BOLKUNETS
 

As dip­lo­matic efforts to chart a path to peace in Ukraine intensify, one crit­ical ele­ment remains over­looked. Last­ing peace in Europe is impossible if Belarus is left out­side any agree­ment.

On the eve of the inva­sion, Alex­an­der Lukashenko – Belarus’s first and only pres­id­ent since 1994 – assured Ukraine and the inter­na­tional com­munity that no attack would come from Belarus­ian ter­rit­ory. Yet, just days later, Rus­sian columns entered from Belarus in a dir­ect betrayal of Ukraine and the Belarus­ian people, who oppose par­ti­cip­a­tion in this war. Mis­siles were launched, air­craft flew from Belarus­ian air­fields, and Rus­sian forces received logist­ical and rear sup­port. Sev­eral coun­tries have recog­nised Belarus as a co-aggressor in Rus­sia’s inva­sion of Ukraine.

Belarus stretches approx­im­ately 1,080km along Ukraine’s north­ern bor­der. It is the shortest route to Kyiv and a dir­ect mis­sile cor­ridor toward Nato coun­tries. As long as Belarus remains an unreg­u­lated mil­it­ary space, Europe’s secur­ity archi­tec­ture con­tains a fun­da­mental breach.

Exclud­ing Belarus from any future agree­ment would there­fore leave a gap­ing hole in the peace of the con­tin­ent. What was exploited once can be exploited again – not only against Ukraine, but Poland, Lithuania or Latvia. As long as Rus­sian forces can freely use the ter­rit­ory, any “peace” is noth­ing more than a tem­por­ary cease­fire wrapped in dip­lo­matic lan­guage.

If Belarus were to be fully or par­tially absorbed by Rus­sia, the Krem­lin would gain a dir­ect cor­ridor to exert pres­sure across cent­ral and north­ern Europe. The Rus­sian army could deploy large forces along Nato bor­ders and threaten Ukraine from the north, sig­ni­fic­antly com­plic­at­ing its secur­ity even after the cur­rent war ends. This would cre­ate a per­man­ent source of ten­sion and render any peace agree­ment incom­plete and unstable.

The Belarus­ian people do not sup­port this war. In 2020, around 200,000 people took to the streets for months to protest against the stolen elec­tion and to demand Lukashenko’s resig­na­tion. Only through the Krem­lin’s sup­port and massive repres­sion was he able to cling to power.

The Belarus Demo­cratic Forum, a coali­tion of inde­pend­ent Belarus­ian civil soci­ety lead­ers, experts and act­iv­ists oper­at­ing

in exile, has sub­mit­ted five pro­pos­als to Pres­id­ent Trump and to the lead­ers of Ukraine, the UK and the EU that must be included in any peace agree­ment if we are to achieve that end.

Firstly, there must be bind­ing guar­an­tees of Belarus’s sov­er­eignty and ter­rit­orial integ­rity, equi­val­ent to those offered to Ukraine. Without such guar­an­tees, Belarus remains vul­ner­able not only as a mil­it­ary plat­form but also as a state. After Ukraine, the Krem­lin will likely seek oppor­tun­it­ies to com­pensate for its fail­ures. Rus­sia is fully cap­able of pur­su­ing a scen­ario involving the com­plete annex­a­tion of Belarus. This would instantly shift Rus­sia’s mil­it­ary infra­struc­ture hun­dreds of kilo­metres west­ward, dir­ectly to the bor­ders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, rad­ic­ally destabil­ising Nato’s east­ern flank and mak­ing a large-scale war in Europe far more likely.

Today, Belarus alone holds more than 1,300 offi­cially recog­nised polit­ical pris­on­ers, and more than 500,000 people have fled the coun­try

That brings us to the second of our demands: a com­plete ban on using Belarus as a Rus­sian plat­form for for­eign aggres­sion, and the res­tor­a­tion of Belarus’s per­man­ent non-nuc­lear status. At the end of the Soviet era, the Belarus­ian Mil­it­ary Dis­trict was a stra­tegic launch­pad for the Soviet Union in case of a major con­flict. It can never become so again.

Thirdly, within 30 days of sign­ing the agree­ment, all polit­ic­ally motiv­ated cases in Rus­sia, Ukraine and Belarus must be closed, polit­ical pris­on­ers released, and cit­izens guar­an­teed safe and free return. Today, Belarus alone holds more than 1,300 offi­cially recog­nised polit­ical pris­on­ers, and more than 500,000 people have fled the coun­try. Nobel laur­eates have also called for this in an open let­ter to the pres­id­ents of the US, Rus­sia and Ukraine, and to EU lead­ers, urging the inclu­sion of a pro­vi­sion for the

par­don or exchange of civil­ians recog­nised as polit­ical pris­on­ers. Thanks to the per­sonal inter­ven­tion of Pres­id­ent Trump, more than 100 people were released for the first time in many months, and we expect this pro­cess to con­tinue.

Fourthly, there must be free and fair elec­tions in Belarus within 250 days, mon­itored by the Organ­isa­tion for Secur­ity and Cooper­a­tion in Europe, the only inter­na­tion­ally recog­nised struc­ture cap­able of provid­ing legit­im­ate elect­oral mon­it­or­ing in post-author­it­arian trans­itions.

Lastly, sanc­tions relief for Belarus should be gradual and strictly con­di­tioned on the release of all polit­ical pris­on­ers, the ces­sa­tion of polit­ical repres­sion, and the hold­ing of free and fair elec­tions.

These pro­pos­als are designed to pre­vent a repeat of the 2022 inva­sion of Ukraine and avoid a wider war in Europe. The 1994 Bud­apest Memor­andum, which guar­an­teed the secur­ity of Ukraine, Belarus and Kaza­kh­stan in exchange for giv­ing up nuc­lear weapons, did not require rat­i­fic­a­tion by the par­lia­ments of the guar­antor states. The res­ult was a doc­u­ment that looked reas­sur­ing but proved leg­ally weak – unable to pro­tect Ukraine when it mattered most.

Any mod­ern peace agree­ment must there­fore undergo full par­lia­ment­ary rat­i­fic­a­tion in accord­ance with the internal pro­ced­ures of the sig­nat­ory states. Without these found­a­tions, peace will once again rest on the same fra­gile ground that pre­vi­ously failed Ukraine. Without Belarus, last­ing peace is impossible. Belarus must be part of the agree­ment, bound by oblig­a­tions and pro­tec­ted by strong secur­ity guar­an­tees.

Europe can­not claim to be secure while leav­ing on its map a ter­rit­ory that the Krem­lin could use for annex­a­tion and future attacks on neigh­bour­ing states. A stable future is only pos­sible when this loop­hole is decis­ively closed.

Valery Tsep­kalo is a former ambas­sador to Wash­ing­ton and ran as a pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate in Belarus in 2020.
Dmitry Bolkun­ets is a polit­ical com­ment­ator and sec­ret­ary gen­eral of the Belarus Demo­cratic Forum