Belarusian, Russian Leaders Set To Meet As West Prepares To Ramp Up Pressure

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka will hold talks in Sochi on February 22 as the duo emerge from mass protests at home to face mounting pressure from the West.

The two leaders will meet in the Black Sea city to discuss economic ties, energy, security, and integration, among other issues, the Kremlin said last week.

The meeting comes the same day the European Union is expected to adopt fresh sanctions against Russia and possibly Belarus, ramping up pressure over a host of issues that have drawn the two neighbors closer in recent months.

The EU has progressively slapped sanctions on Belarus in response to the violent repression of peaceful protesters, the opposition, and media since an August 2020 election the bloc considers fraudulent that extended Lukashenka’s 26-year authoritarian rule.

Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who claims to have won the vote, is calling for the EU to take a tougher stance against Lukashenka’s regime.

The last time Putin and Lukashenka met face to face was in mid-September 2020 in Sochi, when Belarus secured a $1.5 billion loan for its battered economy. Since then, mass protests in Belarus have lost some of their steam during the frigid winter months amid a sweeping crackdown.

In recent years, Russia has pressured Belarus to take steps toward integration in order to cement a 20-year-old agreement to form a union state, only to be rebuffed by Lukashenka’s defense of the nation’s sovereignty.

However, the situation began to change after Russia helped prop up Lukashenka in the wake of the August presidential election, bringing the two sides closer over common threat perceptions.

“Minsk understands perfectly how important it is now to be on the right side of the Kremlin,” political analyst Artyom Shraibman wrote in an analysis for the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Lukashenka has tried many times to show that he and Putin are in the same boat against the collective West, and that the recent protests in Russia are a continuation of those in Belarus.”

Putin comes to Sochi with the threat of new Russia sanctions from the EU and Washington over the detention of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and evidence the anti-corruption crusader was poisoned with a nerve agent he blames on Putin and FSB security agents.

Navalny’s detention in January upon his return from life-saving treatment in Germany and subsequent crackdown on some of the largest anti-government protests in a decade prompted international outrage.

With reporting by dpa and TASS