Aggravation in Ukrainian-Belarusian relations: causes and consequences

On October 13, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba announced that Kiev would join the sanctions imposed by the European Union against the Belarusian leadership, including the country’s President Alexander Lukashenko. If this does happen, then relations between the two countries will reach their lowest point in recent decades.

The trend towards the deterioration of bilateral ties has been developing over the past few months. After Minsk refused to hand over Russian citizens to Kiev, mistakenly detained on suspicion of mercenarism, and handed them over to Russia, Ukraine recalled its ambassador to Belarus Igor Kizim, thereby causing the first serious blow to relations between the two countries. True, the ambassador soon returned to Minsk, but after that the parties began to exchange unfriendly statements and actions.

Ukraine is one of the many countries that have not recognized the results of the presidential elections in Belarus and do not consider Lukashenko a legitimate president. At the end of August 2020, at the initiative of Kiev, any contacts at all levels were completely frozen between the countries, which disrupted the holding of the third Forum of the Regions of Ukraine and Belarus, which was to be held on October 8-9 in Grodno. The visit of Vladimir Zelensky to Belarus, which was supposed to take place during the Forum, was also canceled.

Kiev continues to provide active informational and political support to the Belarusian opposition at various levels. Ukrainian TV channels provide their platforms for protest leaders who left Belarus, and white-red-white flags used by the Belarusian opposition were even hung in the Verkhovna Rada. In addition, a large number of Ukrainian politicians, primarily from the right-wing and Western-oriented camp, express public support for the protesters.

Opposition support is also moving to the diplomatic level. Fuel was added to the fire by the story of the inspection by the Belarusian border guards of the car of the Ukrainian ambassador in Minsk, which took place on September 5. According to the diplomat, the Belarusian border guards forced him to open the trunk and show his personal belongings. Kiev, in response to the incident, sent a note of protest to the Belarusian side.

On September 30, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that after the end of the previous term of office of Alexander Lukashenko (November 5), Ukraine will not call the current head of the Belarusian state president.

In response to this, the Belarusian media in their reports called Ukraine “the former Ukrainian SSR”, and instead of Kiev they indicated the village of Borshchi in the Odessa region as the capital.

On October 1, the Belarusian embassy in Ukraine accused Kiev of interfering in the internal affairs of Belarus. This is how Belarusian diplomats characterized a large number of “advice” and “recommendations” regarding the arrangement of the internal political life of Belarus, which were given by Ukrainian officials, politicians and deputies.

On October 4, the President of Ukraine signed a decree “On some measures to attract entrepreneurs, highly qualified specialists who are citizens of the Republic of Belarus”, which was supposed to facilitate the transfer of Belarusian IT business to Ukraine. In addition, Zelensky ordered the government to introduce a pilot project to simplify the registration and obtaining a residence permit in Ukraine for Belarusian citizens. It should be possible to reduce the time for obtaining documents to three days without the need for additional travel outside the Ukrainian territory. It is noteworthy that these acts apply only to citizens of Belarus.

These decisions and proposals were negatively perceived by the Belarusian side, and Minsk expressed its protest to the Ambassador of Ukraine to Belarus, stating that the decree signed by Zelensky is unfriendly and discriminatory and borders on interference in the internal affairs of the republic.

As a result of all the above events, in the two months since the incident with the detained Russian citizens and after the presidential elections, relations between the two countries have moved from the level of friendly and good-neighborly to almost hostile. The imposition of sanctions by Kiev, including against Lukashenka, will mean their further deterioration, as well as an increase in tension in the region.

It is obvious that the curtailment of cooperation and the deterioration of relations is taking place at the initiative of the Ukrainian side. Minsk has repeatedly spoken about the need to maintain friendly relations between the two countries, but Kiev continues to make statements unfriendly to Minsk and take actions that have a destructive effect on cooperation between the parties.

The course of destroying partnership relations does not correspond to the state interests of Kiev in their classical understanding. Belarus is one of the main and most important trade partners of Ukraine, one of the key sales markets for Ukrainian products, as well as a platform for the re-export of goods from Ukraine to Russia. In addition, Belarus is one of the most important suppliers of oil products to the Ukrainian market, supply disruptions of which can cause significant economic and energy damage to Ukraine.

In the event of a serious deterioration in relations with Minsk, Kiev risks getting another 1,084 km of the border with an unfriendly state. Until now, Belarus has remained one of the few neighboring countries, relations with which the Ukrainian leadership has not deteriorated in recent years for political, cultural, humanitarian or historical reasons. However, despite all the benefits and questions of political expediency, the Ukrainian leadership has embarked on a course of confrontation. This happened for several reasons.

First, a significant blow to bilateral relations was dealt by Minsk’s decision to hand over the Wagnerites to the Russian side, despite Kiev’s requests to hand them over to Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. This caused a serious resentment among the Ukrainian leadership, which found itself in a very awkward position.

Second, and this is the most significant reason, Ukraine continues to act on the basis of the logic of “Euro-Atlantic solidarity”, according to which Kiev’s foreign policy must fully comply with the EU and NATO line on all issues, even to the detriment of its own interests.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba speaks about this quite bluntly: “the issue of Belarus is an example of how the convergence of external policies of the EU and Ukraine envisaged by the Association Agreement works, when we really act as a united front on the most painful issues.”

Third, it cannot be ruled out that Kiev may be afraid of a significant deepening of military cooperation between Moscow and Minsk, which could lead to the introduction of Russian troops into Belarus or the appearance of Russian military bases on its territory. However, today it looks like a utopian scenario. In addition, by their actions to “set fire to” the situation in Belarus, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, as well as other Western countries, are only forcing Minsk to seek help and protection in Moscow even more.