Houthis seize Yemeni island in Bab el-Mandeb, taking control of the strait

Copyright AP Photo

By Aleksandar Brezar

Published on 11/09/2026 - EURONEWS

Houthi fighters reached Perim Island which divides the Bab el-Mandeb into two shipping lanes after government forces withdrew, completing the group's takeover of the strait. Together with Iran's Hormuz blockade, this puts roughly a third of the world's seaborne trade under hostile control.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis took control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Friday, after capturing an island located in the middle of the crucial Red Sea waterway, a local government official and eyewitnesses said.

"Boats carrying armed Houthi fighters reached Mayyun Island after government forces withdrew from it yesterday," the official said, referring to a rocky volcanic island also known as Perim that divides the narrowest part of the strait into two shipping lanes.

"The Houthis have completed their takeover of the Bab el-Mandeb area and Mayyun Island, which is located in the middle of the strait," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

An eyewitness said gunmen were "deploying along the Bab el-Mandeb shore and are driving around in military vehicles."

On Thursday, Houthis captured the strategic port city of Mokha from government forces in a blitz offensive that also saw them taking control of Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea "after rocket attacks and a ground assault carried out using boats transporting fighters," according to military sources.

Footage appeared online of Houthi fighters' apparent celebrations in Mokha and their seizure of considerable weapons and equipment left behind by government forces. Euronews could not verify the authenticity of the footage.

The Houthis, who controlled about one-third of Yemen's territory prior to the offensive, have previously targeted shipping in the narrow waterway which links Asia to Europe via the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb account for more than one quarter of seaborne crude oil and petroleum trade. Nearly one-third of the world's container traffic passes through the Red Sea alone.

The Houthis have also reportedly consulted with Tehran on imposing a safe passage toll through the strait over the summer, in an apparent plot to further strain global economies.

Yemen's internationally recognised government has repeatedly warned of Houthi plans for taking control of the waterway, whose name in Arabic means "Gate of Tears".

Houthis marching on

Formally known as Ansar Allah, the Houthis came to power in late 2014 after storming Sana'a and seizing the presidential palace and key military sites, forcing Yemen's government into exile.

The group is part of Tehran's so-called Axis of Resistance — a loose network of militant groups in several countries in the region including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and militias in Iraq, all backed, trained and equipped by the IRGC to varying degrees.

The group triggered a return to hostilities in Yemen's civil war in July, when they let an Iranian plane land in defiance of Saudi control of Yemeni airspace.

Riyadh retaliated by striking the airport, triggering the Houthis to declare a blockade on the kingdom targeting its oil trade in July.

The Houthis engaged in a large-scale offensive last week against government forces backed by Saudi Arabia, while also launching attacks on Saudi territory that left dozens wounded, leading Riyadh to respond with daily strikes on Houthi-held parts of Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, which earlier this week said it had always offered “opportunities for negotiation,” also said it has the right to defend itself.

Houthi attacks on oil infrastructure and Saudi tankers have further contributed to a spike in oil prices, which surpassed $100 a barrel on Thursday.

A friend in need

Last month, Saudi Arabia signed a NATO-style mutual defence agreement with Turkey and nuclear-armed Pakistan in Mecca, but it seems unlikely either of the two would get involved.

On Tuesday, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan would "honour" the pact "in case there is a need".

Just one day later, the Pakistan foreign ministry said that the Mecca pact was a "defensive alliance focused on deterrence".

"There is no such thing under discussion right now. When the time comes, we will act under the agreement," spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan told the press at the weekly media briefing.

In July, US President Donald Trump said Washington would respond against the Houthis if they attempted to block maritime traffic in the Red Sea, and weeks of US strikes from March 2025, early in Trump's presidency, hit a range of military and industrial targets.

However, Washington is reportedly reluctant to enter the fray at this time as it remains bogged down in its own war with Iran since February.

Relate

Tehran chimed in on Friday, calling for an end to Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen and the immediate resumption of talks, in its first public statement since the Houthi Red Sea offensive.

In a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency, Iran's foreign ministry said Yemen’s sovereignty must be respected, and its problems cannot be resolved through a blockade or military alliances.

Meanwhile, reports have claimed that Iran's elite paramilitary IRGC has deployed dozens of advisors to aid the Houthis in their operations. Euronews could not independently verify the claims at this time.

A potential disruption to Bab el-Mandeb would work in Iran's favour, as its blockade of Hormuz has put significant pressure on the world's energy markets, sparking a crisis that could worsen even further as the northern hemisphere approaches winter.

The leader of Yemen's internationally recognised governing council on Thursday urged Arab and other nations to help it defend the country's coasts.

"The protection of Yemen's coasts and the restoration of state control over its territory, ports and waters is a joint Yemeni, Egyptian, Arab and international interest," said Rashad al-Alimi, who heads Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, during a meeting with Egypt's ambassador.

Since last week, the fighting in Yemen has left more than 500 dead, mostly combatants, according to an AFP tally compiled from several sources.

Great Power Competition In The Caribbean And South Pacific Islands – Analysis

Flags of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China. CC BY-SA 4.0

September 4, 2026\

By Dr. Rajaram Panda

Key Takeaways:

Taiwan is recognized by 12 states; four are in the Caribbean (Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, SVG). China peels allies with aid; Taipei uses aid to hold the rest. Beijing also objected when Palau hosted Taiwan’s foreign minister at the August 2026 Pacific Islands Forum.
After Hurricane Ivan (damage >200% of GDP) Grenada left Taiwan for China in 2005.

 

Taipei sued in New York over defaulted loans, chased cruise and other revenues, and settled years later by cutting ~$22 million roughly in half. SVG’s Taiwanese debt is cited as $37 million (2022) to $345 million (2026), with New York-law acceleration if it switches; a Taipei trip yielded a $2 million grant. The author treats Grenada as a warning shot to remaining allies.

In the South Pacific, Australia is signing security deals (Vanuatu June 2026; Fiji’s first mutual defence treaty July 2026) while China remains a top trader and infrastructure partner. Island states hedge: Western security, Chinese commerce. The U.S. presence is older (Samoa, WWII bases) but Australia/NZ now carry much of the day-to-day contest Penny Wong called “permanent.”

Taiwan as an island nation and economically vibrant has been facing existential crisis since the days Nationalists fled from the mainland China after losing the civil war and after the Peoples Republic of China’s economic rise and increasing assertiveness over claims of Taiwan as an integral part of the PRC. After the US changed its recognition from Taiwan to China as the official entity, not only Taiwan lost its UN membership but lost its status as a country altogether. Since then China has used economic aid as a bargaining tool to Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and enticed those diplomatic allies to switch allegiance. As a result Taiwan is left with few diplomatic allies, mostly small island nations in the Caribbean region and the islands nations in the South Pacific.

The Caribbean has played a significant role in Taiwan’s foreign relations, as several Caribbean states are among the small number of countries that maintain formal diplomatic recognition of Taiwan rather than the PRC. These relationships have been shaped by international competition for diplomatic recognition, development cooperation, and shifting regional and global geopolitics.

As of 2026, nine states in the Caribbean recognized the PRC and four recognized the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name. The region has remained one of the most important diplomatic strongholds for Taiwan in the Western Hemisphere. Today, Taiwan is recognised by only 12 states, with four of them – Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and SVG – in the Caribbean.


China has objected in a routine manner whenever high level political leaders from other countries have visited Taiwan or Taiwan has participated in any other regional forums. The latest in this narrative is when Taiwan joined the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting in Koror, Palau in the last week of August 2026. China voiced its opposition, with Beijing’s envoy to the Pacific Qian Bo threatening unspecified consequences over its presence at the conference, which is not a dialogue partner for the forum. Palau, a stunning West Pacific archipelago of less than 20,000 people, is one of a dozen remaining nations that maintain diplomatic nations with Taiwan. As host of 2026 Pacific Islands Forum, it invited Taiwan’s foreign minister to attend, one of Taipei’s few remaining avenues for international exposure.

Taiwan too has used economic diplomacy with the island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean region to keep and save diplomatic ties with those diplomatic allies. In fact, both China and Taiwan virtually compete in giving economic aid as inducement to switch allegiance and maintain diplomatic ties respectively. In this competition, China has almost succeeded in most cases, thereby marching ahead for total diplomatic isolation of Taiwan. This has been the strategy of Beijing for ultimate reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.

Being pushed to the wall for survival, Taiwan too has explored all possible means to keep diplomatic ties with the remaining dozen of allies. Grenada is a test case for Taiwan on how to deal with this Caribbean nation. In 1989, Grenada severed ties with China and recognised Taiwan, causing Beijing to cut formal relations due to the One-China policy. Then in 2005 Grenada switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China.


This provoked Taiwan to play the debt hardball diplomacy that carries a clear warning for its remaining allies. Taiwan dragged its former diplomatic partner Grenada through US courts to collect on defaulted loans. In fact the debt trap strategy was originally used by Beijing, leading to many small countries to switch allegiance from Taiwan to China. Analysts often warned these small countries to be careful not to fall into China’s debt trap and thus avoid bilateral loans from China. Grenada’s debt dispute is not recent; it is decade old and Taiwan decided to weaponise to indirectly send a message to Beijing that it too can play the hardball.

What was Grenada’s economic situation and what compelled it to borrow loans from Taiwan, which it failed to repay? In 2004, Grenada was decimated by Hurricane Ivan and this led the Grenadian government to make a strategic decision to shift diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2005. When Grenada was hit by another hurricane in 2005, its population of 10,000 suffered with huge economic damage, needing external help.

When Grenada switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, it was a big blow to Taiwan. Following the devastation caused by the hurricanes in two successive years, Grenada’s economy was in shambles. Grenada required immediate liquidity for rebuilding its battered infrastructure, which Beijing was too happy to provide. Therefore the switch was born of necessity than any other reason. The damage from Ivan was more than 200 per cent of gross domestic product. Over 90 per cent of homes were damaged or destroyed, and half of the population was left homeless.

At that time, Taiwan was Grenada’s largest creditor and had reason to feel betrayed over Grenada’s decision to switch allegiance. Taipei sued Grenada in a New York court to recover the full outstanding amount. Writing in South China Morning Post, Alex Lo observes: “Thus began a spiteful, decade-long legal battle. Taiwan wielded the loan contract’s sovereign immunity waiver like a bludgeon, attempting to seize Grenada’s revenue streams from cruise lines, shipping companies and international arbitration awards.” The lawsuit affected Grenada greatly and was not able to recover sooner than expected. The courts eventually sided with Grenada, and a settlement was reached a decade later by halving the total debt of about $22 million. Yet, the damage was already done.


By going to court to recover its money, Taiwan indirectly sent a message to the remaining allies to be watchful in dealing with international finance. Taiwan activated its debt-trap diplomacy as a desperate step to remain relevant in international politics and maintain its status as a sovereign entity.

The situation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), another ally of Taiwan, is equally precarious. Its debt-fuelled alliance with Taipei looks increasingly unsustainable. Its Taiwanese debt is skyrocketing. The figures have ballooned from $37 million in 2022 to $345 million in 2026. With little money available, the government is unable to fund investment for growth. The loan agreements are governed by New York law. This includes a clause that would make SVG immediately repay should it switch diplomatic recognition. The government of SVG has very little fiscal space for social programmes. The SVG Prime Minister travelled to Taipei to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties. Though his real purpose was to ease pressure on the national debt, he failed in his mission, except getting a paltry grant of $2 million.

Seeing Grenada’s case, SVG did not hesitate to publicly declare its commitment to maintain diplomatic relations. SVG is aware how Taipei would respond should there be any attempt at a diplomatic switch. The government now faces an almost impossible challenge: stabilising a struggling economy, protecting essential social programmes, and stimulating growth through investment. Reliance on Western and Taiwanese economic aid and borrowing are the primary reasons, and politically under the influence of the US, the small number of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, mainly small island states in the Caribbean and Oceania, including Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, effectively remain captive from recognising China.

The situation is no different in the Pacific island nations where competition for influence between China and Australia is in full play. Like the small states in the Caribbean, the Pacific nations are also walking a tightrope between Western security and Chinese trade. Compared to the vulnerabilities of the Caribbean island states, the small states in the South Pacific have a bigger neighbour in Australia to rely on and keep China at bay. While Australia’s approach, besides economic aid, has been by signing defence pacts in the region, Beijing uses aid diplomacy to spread its influence. For the South Pacific islands, though long neglected as a geopolitical backwater, the strategic significance of the region has assumed added importance in the wake of maritime trade and convergence of interests. Signing defence pacts has emerged a significant tool to protest their strategic and national interests.

While Australia provides security guarantees to the Pacific island states by signing security pacts, China is busy building infrastructure and deepening its economic footprint. In June 2026, Vanuatu, just 1090 mile east of Australia, signed a security pact with Australia. A week later in early July, Fiji signed its first mutual defence treaty with Australia. The treaty is open for other Pacific nations to join. As admitted by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, such manoeuvre by Australia was a “permanent contest” for influence in the region against an increasingly assertive China. Seen from a larger perspective, this is a demonstration of Australia’s ambition of becoming the Pacific’s preferred security partner and by eliminating China’s influence from the region.

Graeme Smith, deputy director of the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University is quoted to have observed in a post in the South China Morning Post that these pacts are a calculated hedge by the Pacific Island nations. For almost all Pacific countries, China is a major trading partner. At the same time, the US has extensive military facilities across the Pacific Ocean. Neither the Pacific nations nor China has the capacity to see America’s eclipse from the region. The best for the Pacific island states therefore is to make the best of the current situation.


The US military presence in the South Pacific is not recent; it dates back to the late 19th century, when the US annexed American Samoa and soon built its first naval base south of the equator. During World War II, the Allies operated airbases and naval airfields across the South Pacific – including in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands. After the War, the US shifted its security focus northwards to Guam and Hawaii, largely leaving it to Australia and New Zealand to further Western interests in the South Pacific. Since then, the geopolitics in the region has undergone a change with China’s rise as an economic behemoth with unlimited appetite to spread its influence wherever its economic and security interests coalesce. This makes the South Pacific region as a theatre for great power competition between China and Australia/New Zealand. For the Pacific island nations, Australia might be the preferred security partner but China is still relevant for their economic lifeline in terms of trade, aid and economic development. The Pacific island nations are left with no choice but to play such balancing act for their national interests. In this power game, while Australia and New Zealand are unlikely to withdraw their engagement with the Pacific nations, Beijing is likely to continue capitalising on the Pacific Island nations’ desire to balance competing major powers.

About Dr. Rajaram Panda
Dr. Rajaram Panda is former Senior Fellow at Pradhanmantri Memorial Museum and Library (PMML). Earlier Dr Panda was Senior Fellow at MP-IDSA and ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, JAPAN. His latest book "India and Japan: Past, Present and Future" was published in 2024 by Knowledge World. E-mail: rajaram.panda@gmail.com
View all posts by Dr. Rajaram Panda →

Free Speech Groups Sound Alarm on “Red Scare” Repression of ICE Watch Activists

Advocates asked a court to unseal more details on Trump’s surveillance of churches, schools, and libraries in Minnesota.

By Mike Ludwig , 

Truthout

August 29, 2026

Several thousand people march for democracy at the call of several organizations and associations, demanding ICE out of Minnesota immediately, and justice and accountability for Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and all victims of ICE in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on February 16, 2026.Jerome Gilles / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Free speech groups across the country are sounding the alarm over the Trump administration’s surveillance of social movements in Minnesota and the prosecution of the Minnesota 15, a group of activists from Minneapolis-St. Paul who face federal conspiracy charges after organizing protests against brutal immigration sweeps earlier this year.

President Donald Trump and his allies in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice Department have targeted the First Amendment-protected expression of protesters, civil society groups, journalists, universities, and the lawyers representing them at a scale that has “not been seen since the Second Red Scare,” according to an amicus brief filed with a federal court in Minnesota on August 25 by Protect Democracy and other groups.

Documents recently released in court filings show that DHS agents spied on churches, schools, and libraries to gather information on labor unions, nonprofits, and community groups large and small. In June, the Minnesota 15 were arrested and charged with conspiracy to stalk, impede, and assault immigration officers under a section of federal law the Trump administration has used to arrest anti-ICE protesters across the country.

Instead of attempting to tie the Minnesota 15 to one specific incident, prosecutors filed conspiracy charges linking the defendants to rapid response groups that coordinated to alert people about ICE raids and send volunteers into the streets in response — a loose set of tactics that became a model for anti-ICE organizers elsewhere.

Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan group that defends speech across the political spectrum, compared Trump’s crackdown on Minnesota to the worst civil liberties abuses during the McCarthy era and COINTELPRO in the mid-20th century. At the time, paranoia about communism ran high on the right, and civil rights organizers, gay federal employees, and anti-war activists were targeted for surveillance, arrest, and interrogation due to perceived disloyalty to the United States or for holding pro-peace, anti-racist, and left-wing political beliefs.

“The idea is to stoke a culture of fear and have folks keep quiet rather than disagree with those in power,” Creeley told Truthout. “But the First Amendment is designed to protect just that kind of disagreement.”

However, by prosecuting the Minnesota 15 for political activism, the Trump administration has been forced through the legal discovery process to reveal details about the federal surveillance of protests against Operation Metro Surge, the immigration crackdown in Minnesota announced by Trump in December.

Documents released by a defense attorney earlier this month show that undercover agents with ICE’s investigative unit infiltrated multiple left-leaning groups in Minneapolis as part of an investigation called “Operation Puppet Master,” four days after a group of federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, the nurse who died while attempting to shield another protester from the agents on January 24.

In addition to killing Pretti and protester Renee Good, federal immigration agents terrorized tight-knit neighborhoods in the Twin Cities and across Minnesota in what Human Rights Watch calls a “manufactured crisis.” Protests and mutual aid efforts erupted as videos of violent arrests and confrontations between federal agents and residents went viral, resulting in dozens of arrests.

FIRE, the left-leaning Protect Democracy, the right-leaning Society for the Rule of Law, and the libertarian Cato Institute filed a brief on August 25 in support of a request by a defense attorney representing the Minnesota 15 defendants for the government to hand over more documents and records related to its surveillance of activist groups, including any correspondence between the White House and prosecutors. The coalition reflects growing bipartisan frustration over Trump’s excesses and power grabs.

The groups want additional documents from prosecutors made public to further understand the scope of government surveillance under the controversial NSPM-7 directive, a memo issued by Trump in 2025 that conflates “anti-Americanism” and “anti-Christianity” views with political violence. The NSPM-7 also orders the Joint Terrorism Task Force to target anti-fascist activism, which the administration wrongly conflates with terrorism.

In a hearing on August 27, defense attorney Kevin Riach said additional discovery is needed to determine whether DHS selectively or vindictively targeted the Minnesota 15 based on their political beliefs. Riach represents Isaac Sant, one of the Minnesota 15 facing conspiracy charges. U.S. District Judge David Schultz said he would issue an order as soon as possible but did not provide a timeline, according to the Minnesota Reformer.

“The purpose of this prosecution is to chill the conduct of the defendants and others and to squash dissent in this district,” Riach said.

While Trump’s crackdown brought trauma and heartbreak to Minnesota — which appears to be one of the administration’s unspoken goals in a bastion of Democratic voters, activists say — images of neighbors gathering to confront agents in freezing weather and organize meals and carpools to sustain immigrant families became a potent symbol of resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the rest of the nation.

The Trump administration halted Operation Metro Surge — which it had billed as the largest immigration sting in U.S. history — on February 12 amid widespread public backlash. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol officer leading Operation Metro Surge, was forced to step down. Trump fired former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem amid a flurry of scandal on March 5.

“For myself, I’ve received nothing but support here,” said Cameron Kennedy, one of the Minnesota 15 defendants, in an August 12 interview with Truthout. “My neighbors have offered to help my partner and I any way they can, donating money and food. People recognize me on the street and thank me for the work I’m alleged to have done.”

Truthout has spoken to mutual aid activists in Minnesota who say they are taking precautions about speaking publicly but not backing down. Elianne Farhat, co-executive director of TakeAction Minnesota, said members of her organization — public school families, performers, and neighbors from across the state — have already proved they cannot be bullied after schools became a target during Operation Metro Surge.

“Instead, we stay calm, speak up, save the evidence, and stick with our friends — basic playground rules,” Farhat told Truthout in an email. “Public schools are a common good and the cornerstone of a multiracial, thriving democracy. And as our networks of care proved during the terror of Operation Metro Surge, they are vital hubs for community resilience and survival.”

FIRE’s Creeley said he believes that intimidating Minnesotans was part of a broader Trump administration strategy to send a clear message to the rest of the U.S. public — standing up to ICE and Trump has consequences for the public regardless of what the Constitution says about the right to assemble freely and criticize public officials.

“I think when you have a drumbeat of news stories about the executive branch infiltrating peaceful protest groups, demanding information from nonprofits and unions, and even sneaking into churches; yeah, I think the average American notices that and even thinks twice before speaking out and exercising their First Amendment rights,” Creeley said.

Indeed, ICE has created a nationwide web of surveillance. Civil rights groups recently sued ICE to challenge the mass surveillance of immigrants with ankle and wrist monitors equipped with GPS. In July, a nonprofit and three U.S. citizens who worked as legal observers during ICE raids in Minnesota filed a lawsuit alleging DHS agents have been using “facial recognition technology, license plate readers, body cameras and other methods” to stifle their efforts, in violation of the First Amendment and privacy law.

“They are 100 percent acting like constitutional restrictions on government do not apply to them; they’re flying in the face of established First Amendment law,” Creeley said of Trump administration officials.

This week FIRE and the Dartmouth Polarization Research Lab released a quarterly survey showing that only 28 percent of U.S. residents feel “very comfortable” discussing ICE operations without fear of reprimand. Respondents who identified as “very liberal” (41 percent) or “very conservative” (57 percent) were more likely to feel “very comfortable” discussing the mass deportation campaign, but Creeley said the data is evidence that the prosecutions and brutality seen in Minnesota are having a nationwide repressive impact on freedom of speech.

Particularly after the killings of Good and Pretti, those standing up to ICE and Trump must live with the implicit threat of state violence. However, the Minnesota 15 and other Twin Cities activists — including the many rapid response groups that quickly formed in the Twin Cities to confront ICE agents attempting to kidnap their neighbors — refuse to be intimidated.

“Take responsibility, take risks, take care of each other, and never rely on the very state that is ripping our communities apart and murdering our people to solve the problem that both political parties created,” Kennedy told Truthout.

Creeley said courts should find that the First Amendment also stands in the way of Trump’s authoritarian power grab.

“Secret visits from government agents and knocks on the door for statements critical of the country’s leaders — I have a feeling those are the exact kind of abuses that the founding generation fought against,” Creeley said.

In The Bear’s Paw: How Europeans Can Loosen Russia’s Grip On Belarus – Analysis



LONG READ

August 23, 2026
ECFR
By Vasil Navumau

Key Takeaways:

Belarus has shifted from a relatively stable buffer and Russian rear base into a forward-operating platform for Moscow—hosting missiles, joint exercises, logistics, and hybrid pressure on Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia—raising direct security risks for the EU’s eastern flank.

Broad EU sanctions and isolation have deepened Minsk’s dependence on Russia without adequately addressing the military threat or easing repression of political prisoners and the diaspora.

The paper urges a more targeted EU approach: strengthen border-state defence and deconfliction, keep limited working-level channels, support civil society and SMEs, condition limited engagement on verifiable steps, and treat Lukashenko as retaining some residual agency that can still be pressured away from full Russian satellite status.

A satellite state

Take a map of Europe and find Belarus. Trace a finger clockwise, from the country’s northern borders and around to the east, where Russia is followed by Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Belarus’s capital, Minsk, is itself almost at the exact geographic heart of the country, surrounded by hills, with vast forests sprawled out like capillaries beyond.

It is from here that Belarus’s longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko, looks out from his “Palace of Independence” on Minsk’s Pieramozcau Avenue. To the east, in Russia, his fellow authoritarian Vladimir Putin continues to decimate Ukraine from its eastern borders and scheme to undermine European political interests. To the west, stretching hundreds of kilometres past Belarus’s western border with Poland and across Germany, lies Brussels. Faced with instability across the continent, the EU’s capital is increasingly unsure about what to do with its problematic Belarusian neighbour.


The EU downgraded its diplomatic relations with Belarus in 2020 after the latter’s disputed presidential election, which saw Lukashenko’s government violently repress protestors who took to the streets to oppose the president seizing victory by undemocratic means. Although bilateral trade between the EU and Belarus was largely undamaged in the subsequent years, the fall in trade with the bloc after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 created an economic gap which Russia has exploited. For example, it has stepped up its own trading relationship with Belarus and become a key market for exports of Belarusian goods such as dairy products and petrochemicals—also allowing Moscow to evade EU sanctions. In doing so, Russia filled a vacuum for Belarus; Lukashenko, facing limited alternatives, deepened his dependence on Moscow.

Although Belarus did not formally commit troops to Russia’s war of aggression, it did allow the latter to house missiles, tanks, artillery, helicopters, aeroplanes and other military equipment in its territory prior to the invasion. It also provided military and civil infrastructure for Russia’s use, including airfields, hospitals and railway lines. This year alone, Russia has transferred more missiles—including dual-capable, hypersonic missiles—to Belarusian territory and conducted joint exercises encompassing the Belarusian Armed Forces. This, combined with a breakdown in dialogue between the EU and Belarus, gives Putin yet more sway in his quest to entrench Russia further into Belarusian structures.


Now that Belarus is apparently firmly committed to the supranational union of Belarus and Russia, known as the Union State, it has become a structural security concern for Europe. Russian deployment of nuclear-capable weapons on Belarusian territory makes Europe’s eastern flank more vulnerable, while Belarus’s already tense relations with neighbouring border states Poland, Latvia and Lithuania are at risk of deteriorating further. At the same time, Belarus has 879 political prisoners languishing, with Lukashenko’s regime having essentially outlawed any political or civic activity which the authorities see as a threat.

All this has compounded the breakdown in relations between Belarus and Europe. Russia is further emboldened to entrench its military deeper into Belarusian territory, tighten its economic dependencies and integrate the country further into its nuclear strategy.

This paper examines Belarus’s transformation from a problematic but stable buffer state between western Europe and Russia to a country which poses an increasing military and security threat to the EU. It argues that the EU should move away from relying solely on economic leverage and the blanket application of sanctions—which are pushing Belarus to rely more heavily on Russia—and develop a more targeted approach. Europeans need to actively contain the growing military and nuclear threat by finding new avenues of diplomatic negotiation, and by incorporating NATO-inspired approaches into its defence policy for its vulnerable eastern states.

Perhaps most importantly, Europeans need to assess to what extent they can treat Minsk as an autonomous actor capable of making decisions independently from Moscow. Europeans should take recent developments, such as Ukraine’s discovery of four signal relay stationsin two Belarusian oblasts and their subsequent removal, as proof that Lukashenko retains the authority to make territorial-based decisions—especially under pressure from Russia.


However, for as long as Lukashenko remains in power, Belarus will never be entirely free of Moscow: he is an authoritarian, and Minsk remains sanctioned due to its breach of human rights clauses and mistreatment of its population. Belarus’s geopolitical position is also at least partly down to early decisions that Lukashenko made when he turned towards Moscow in the mid-1990s—a time when most other former Soviet nations chose real independence. Long before 2020, this posture led to missed opportunities with the EU, reinforced Lukashenko’s propensity to commit human rights violations and kickstarted Belarus’s deepening economic and military integration with Russia.

In its pursuit of a new strategy, the EU needs to recognise that—even if Belarus remains a stable, contained buffer zone—the country will not undergo a full democratic transformation. Europeans are thus searching for a Belarus which no longer presents an urgent security threat on its eastern border. They should aim to help shape a country whose stability reduces geopolitical risk without abandoning the EU’s long-standing commitment to democracy, human rights and the well-being of Belarusian society.

Belarus as a security actor

Belarus declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But, with what Russia perceived as the NATO and European sphere of influence shifting eastwards, Belarus became increasingly valuable to Moscow—especially because of the Suwalki Gap, which lies between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarusian territory. The Russia-Belarus relationship became more entrenched once Lukashenko and Putin came to power in 1994 and 1999, respectively. The two leaders are hardly close personal friends—but they have nonetheless developed strong cultural and economic ties based on the similarity of their two anti-Western and authoritarian regimes, and their notion of a shared history.


Over the past 30 years, Belarus has moved closer to Russia in economy, trade and idea sharing. But it has gone beyond simply sharing a similar geopolitical outlook; now it is a militarised actor on the EU’s eastern flank. The first tipping point came with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At this point, Lukashenko was already politically entangled with Moscow due to its support for Belarus’s trade network and economic sector after Minsk’s break with Europe in 2020. But the invasion meant that Belarus also became entrenched in the Russian military machine: in the early phase of Russia’s invasion, it became a launchpad for Russian ground offensives towards Kyiv and Chernihiv, and for missile strikes and combat aviation operations.

Since this period, Russia has attempted to consolidate its control even further. Now it has approximately 2,000 troops concentrated around air-defence systems, training facilities, logistics hubs and long-standing Russian military installations. Between 2022 and 2023, ammunition transfers from Belarus to Russia exceeded 130,000 tonnes. Since then, joint training centres, storage bases and transport corridors (many inherited from the Soviet period) have been repurposed and modernised under Belarus-Russia Union State programmes to support Russian operational needs. Rail-linked depots, armament storage facilities and training grounds now serve as key infrastructure for Russian forces on its western flank.


The second tipping point came with the two countries regularly staging recurring joint military exercises that institutionalise operational integration, such as the Zapad military drills which have been taking place since before 2022. Now Russia is eyeing up Belarus as a key component of its nuclear ambitions and has also deployed Oreshnik intermediate-range missile systems in Belarus. In April this year, Belarus confirmed it would no longer allow Russian conscripts who desert the military to leave via its border. Belarus is also a staging post for Russian nuclear missiles and joint military exercises.

The country has thus become Russia’s territorial, militaristic and logistical resource, achieved through durability, military routinisation and institutional embedding. The military aspect of this entrenchment is also compounded through hybrid attacks. For example, as early as November 2021 the EU condemned Belarus for facilitating the weaponisation of migrants—predominantly from conflict areas such as Iraq and Syria—who it had apparently encouraged to breach the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

This form of hybrid warfare has continued into 2026: recent reports saythat Lithuanian authorities have discovered a cross-border tunnel from Belarus to Lithuania, which they suspect is to continue to facilitate the potential movement of migrants through European territories. Now, with the Union State increasingly functioning as a homogeneous force, there is a threat that Belarus will become more emboldened to facilitate further dangerous hybrid manoeuvring. It intends to check Europe’s readiness and destabilise it from the inside.

Belarus as a threat to Europe

The difference in the threat which Belarus now poses to Europe lies in its shift—which has taken place over the past six years—from being Russia’s “rear-operating base” to Russia’s “forward-operating base”.

As Russia’s rear-operating base, Belarus functioned as a non-combat zone for logistics and maintenance. While it supported Russian military activity and provided strategic depth by shifting military infrastructure and combat flashpoints away from Russian territory, as a rear-operating base Belarus avoided deploying its own forces into Ukraine and directly engaging in combat operations. This allowed Lukashenko to avoid many of the challenges that Putin is experiencing, including politically sensitive military mobilisation, high personnel casualties and mounting internal economic pressure. This approach had previously provided Lukashenko with the degree of political deniability and diplomatic leverage necessary to continue negotiating with Western economies on economic sanctions and market access. He was able to point to Belarus’s arm’s-length approach to the war in Ukraine as proof that he was willing to engage with Europeans at a diplomatic and economic level.

However, Belarus’s position has changed since 2022. Evidence collected by the author demonstrates that Russia is increasingly establishing the country as a forward-operating base. Moscow is building on its routinisation and institutional embedding of military infrastructure to deploy personnel on Belarusian territory and undertake recurring joint military exercises, lately including nuclear forces preparation. Minsk’s rhetoric is changing to match these actions. In 2022, Belarus changed its constitution to allow Russia to store nuclear missiles on its territory; in a “Militarization of Europe” meeting held in June 2026, Belarus’s deputy minister of foreign affairs Igor Sekreta said he was “deeply concerned by… military exercises on NATO’s eastern flank” and “the EU and NATO… systematically promoting a militarist agenda at all levels.”


The Belarusian government is simultaneously becoming a component of Russian forward-military position and aligning ideologically with Russia’s view that Europe (and the West in general) constitutes an existential threat. Lukashenko himself reiterated this in May 2026, when he declared that “… [Belarus is] ready in every possible way to defend our common fatherland from Brest to Vladivostok.” The change is especially worrying for Ukraine, which is already fighting a war against Russia on several fronts. Its brow-beaten army could soon be required to deploy yet more resources to another defensive line on its northern border. Belarusian state media have suggested that Putin desires to open a “second front” against Ukraine, using Belarus as a launchpad for further attacks.

Indeed, evidence suggests that Russia is already using Belarusian infrastructure to gain an advantage in its drone warfare against Ukraine: in June 2026, Ukrainian intelligence services discovered four signal relay stations in the Belarusian oblasts of Homiel and Brest. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, appealed directly to Belarus to dismantle the sites or face potential Ukrainian consequences. The Belarusian president apparently acquiesced—although no public statement or confirmation has been made.

Belarus’s transformation into a forward-operating base was further bolstered in 2023, when Russia deposited tactical Iskander nuclear-capable warheads on its territory. Then, in early 2025, Russia moved Oreshnik hypersonic missiles to a location which experts estimate to be around 60km south of Minsk. This has changed the calculus for the rest of Europe. Europeans must contend with an additional nuclear threat right on its border (aside from Kaliningrad) and consider how this could compromise security along its eastern flank.

Meanwhile, as noted above, Belarus is mixing concrete actions with rhetoric that suggests it sees Europe as a threat to its own sovereignty. In the same speech, Sekreta commented that Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have a combined defence expenditure of €52bn, which is apparently “25 times more than Belarus allocates for defence”. This suggests that Belarus increasingly views European and NATO defence investments through the lens of Russian military planning. If left unchecked, Russian influence will leave EU member states more vulnerable to further hybrid attacks from Union State forces.

For Europeans, there is also potential for escalation in how these border countries respond, and uncertainty about where escalation could lead. For example, the Zapad-2025 military drills, which took place on September 12th 2025, prompted Poland to close its border with Belarus due to “heightened security concerns”. Prior to this, on September 9th and 10th, Russia had flown several drones into Polish airspace during an attack on Ukraine. Lithuania also closed its border with Belarus for a whole month in October 2025 (and refused to enter negotiations to reopen it) after meteorological balloons travelled into its airspace from Belarus. The latter responded by accusing Lithuania of “pursuing an anti-Belarus policy”. Latvia, for its part, is struggling to deal with Belarus’s tactic of sending illegal migrants over its border. As of July 21st 2026, the Latvian government had recorded 8,413 instances of migrants attempting to cross into its territory this calendar year, stirring discontent prior to the parliamentary election in October. The country has also uncovered several sabotage operations that have appear to have been carried out by Belarusian and Russian spies.


European leaders heating up their confrontations in such critical areas is further adding to NATO’s headache. Belarus’s degradation as a buffer zone between western Europe and Russia means the potential for these flashpoints to drift further west is growing, not helped by a continually deteriorating diplomatic relationship between the Lukashenko government and the governments of neighbouring EU states. The proximity of Russian missiles and personnel to European territory could compromise NATO warning systems; it also suggests that the Union State is becoming increasingly willing to test European responses to its increasingly integrated deterrent.

Now the EU needs to reconfigure its strategy towards Belarus. The goal should be to ensure that Lukashenko does not limit his room for manoeuvre so much that he has no choice but to descend into a fully armoured satellite state; and that he has no choice but to react to any order Putin gives.

What Europe is doing…

On sanctions

Since Belarus’s flagrantly undemocratic 2020 presidential election, which sparked the country’s largest political crisis since independence, the EU and Belarus have downgraded their diplomatic relations. This is a cycle which Europe and Belarus have found themselves in since at least 2006: repression conducted by the regime triggers sanctions and isolation from Europe, which are followed by limited thaws and diplomatic re-engagement, which are then interrupted by renewed crackdowns—and so on. This time, however, the diplomatic downgrading was mutual: Lukashenko made Poland and Lithuania’s ambassadors leave Minsk in October 2020, and requested the EU ambassador return to Brussels.

In 2021, following Lukashenko’s contested re-election, Europe’s approach became more actively political. Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya lobbied European governments to move beyond broad economic measures, such as existing targeted sanctions, to adopt harsher and broader sectoral sanctions. These were directed at, for example, specific officials, judges, prosecutors and police officers responsible for repression of Belarusian citizens. Belarus, for its part, suspended participation in the Eastern Partnership, an initiative which aims to strengthen political and economic relations between the EU, its member states and the partner countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Europe’s response remains to take a blanket approach to sanctions towards Belarus. It reinforced its sanctions cycle even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the EU’s approach to Belarus is embedded within its anti-Russia packages. This means that the EU not only targets individuals involved in conflict operations, but also bundles Minsk in together with the trade restrictions, export controls and financial measures which it aims at Moscow. Europeans have fallen into the trap of treating their Belarus policy as an extension of their Russia policy, although some politicians—including French president Emmanuel Macron and, back in 2021, former German chancellor Angela Merkel—have also pursued limited efforts to test whether targeted incentives could shape Minsk’s behaviour.


However, some EU sources say that Minsk is an unwilling negotiating partner. It remains to be seen whether it will be explicit about the desire to reshape engagement with Europe. As of 2026, EU–Belarus relations remain largely frozen. They have seen only minimal diplomatic engagement and sustained sanctions, and only limited, transactional contact has emerged—for example, in negotiations over political prisoners and technical discussions over border management. In its latest sanctions announcement, the European Council extended its sanctions regime against Belarus until 2027.

The EU is thus in a difficult position when it comes to pursuing normalisation with Minsk. Since Europe’s Belarus policy is considerably shaped by Belarus’s neighbours, Lithuania and Poland—and Vilnius is especially reluctant to open any dialogue with Minsk—other member states are less emboldened to force through normalisation policies which are at risk of simply being blocked. What is clear is that, unless Belarus makes clear improvements in its human rights conditions and clearly distances itself from Russia’s war in Ukraine, European policy will remain structured around three aspects: progressive sanctions targeting regime elites and key economic sectors; political non-recognition of the legitimacy of Lukashenko’s rule; and support for Belarusian civil society and exiles.

Another problem for Europe is that continuing to heavily limit industrial trade and the transfer of dual-use goods and military equipment to Belarus could see Lukashenko rely more heavily on Putin’s open markets. But, if Europeans do not pursue sanctions, they indirectly aid Russia: Lukashenko supports Russia’s war against Ukraine by selling military and dual-use goods to Russia, thus helping it circumvent sanctions. This, in turn, creates a cycle of obligation whereby Minsk acquiesces to future military requests from Moscow and Russia further entrenches along Europe’s eastern flank.

The EU approach broadly treats Belarus as a subsidiary of Russia and narrows Europeans’ ability to develop a tailored security policy which directly targets Belarus as a forward-operating base. As things stand, sanctions on the economy and trade are not adequately addressing the developing threat that Belarus poses to European security. And they do not help alleviate the suffering of the ordinary Belarusians at home and in exile.

On the diaspora

Since 2020, Lukashenko has stepped up his repression and exile of Belarusian civil society actors opposed to his regime. Evidence collected by the author through focus groups carried out for ECFR suggests that, for Belarusians, exile is no longer perceived as a temporary or marginal condition. Rather, it has become a structural feature of Lukashenko’s authoritarian governance. Participants consistently described forced migration as a way for the Lukashenko regime to externalise dissent to maintain internal stability. The government pushes out political activists, journalists, researchers and civic organisers to reduce domestic pressure, while the regime projects an external image of control and normalisation.

This means that Belarus has shifted much of its political contestation into European societies. As a result, the EU has faced myriad challenges related to diaspora governance, transnational repression (including surveillance, intimidation, pressure on relatives and legal harassment across borders) and social cohesion. The EU has, particularly after 2020, provided unprecedented political recognition and support to Belarus’s democratic forces, including security guarantees and sustained funding. For Lukashenko, exile therefore functions as a strategic arena.

How Europeans govern this space—through legal regimes, funding structures or protection mechanisms—directly shapes whether repression through exile succeeds as a long-term strategy.

On its foreign policy approach

The EU’s treatment of Belarus as having limited sovereignty over its foreign policy is also at odds with the US approach. Washington’s current relationship with Minsk is based on President Donald Trump recognising Lukashenko as legitimate, and the US agreeing to negotiate sanctions relief in exchange for the release of political prisoners. America still casts Belarus as a strategic adversary; but it nonetheless accepts that the country needs careful handling to safeguard American and NATO interests in Europe. EU member states, which eye Washington’s approaches to Minsk with caution, have ramped up their scepticism further since Lukashenko joined Trump’s questionable“Board of Peace” (despite the Belarusian leader lending credence to Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine).

Overall, America is searching for “visible deals” whereby it can secure humanitarian wins via economic channels. The clearest example of this is its pursuit of calibrated sanctions relief: in 2025, Belarus released 123 political prisoners in return for the US easing sanctions on the Belarusian potash industry. And it could be argued that this has paid some dividends: lifting sanctions on Belarus helps ease the domestic economic pressure on Lukashenko, which leaves him less dependent on support from Russia for trade.

However, the thaw in America’s approach does nothing to address Belarus’s increasingly entrenched role as a Russian military staging post. Indeed, no approach taken by any American president ever has. And while former president Joe Biden synchronised Washington’s policy towards Belarus with that of Brussels, under his successor, Trump, the two approaches are disparate. Of course, the US does not have the major consideration of the security challenges which Belarus poses to Europe’s borders. But this divergence between America’s prioritisation of transactionalism and the EU’s prioritisation of security will only grow in the absence of a coordinated transatlantic frameworktowards Belarus.

There also exists the possibility that Lukashenko could exploit the gap between America’s leverage-based approach and Europe’s risk-based approach, to play each side against the other. From the US, Lukashenko has already achieved incremental sanctions relief and diplomatic rehabilitation while continuing to align Belarusian security with Russian territorial involvement and pursuing domestic repression. As it stands, all signs point to US bargaining having no impact on Belarus’s strategic alignment or its military cooperation with Russia. Human rights abuses remain.

What Europe can do next

Europe’s continued policy of isolating Belarus and imposing sanctions is turning the country towards Russia as a more attractive option for trade and investment. However, Europeans cannot simply restore diplomatic relations, even to their pre-2020 iteration: they need to hold Lukashenko accountable for his disregard of democratic norms and civilian abuse, and accountable militarily for his assistance to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

This requires developing an alternative approach which goes beyond the current binary choice of engagement or isolation and identifies as a priority exactly the type of Belarus that Europeans want to—or are willing to—work with. Europeans need to examine existing EU and US approaches to Belarus, and discover where Lukashenko could exploit gaps in their divergence—and where room for leverage and leeway exists.

This also requires Europeans to understand the type of pressure that Russia is exerting on Belarus. It is true that Russia continues to provide loans to Belarus, open its market to sanctioned Belarusian goods and give Belarus access to infrastructure through which it can continue exporting goods to Brazil, China and India. But this is illusory: Russia exerting “real” pressure would amount to trade wars, blockades of Belarusian goods, cutting off financial aid and propaganda attacking Lukashenko. Putin has exercised similar measures before, when Moscow was unhappy with Minsk. Now, in 2026, their actions might be well coordinated, but Russia has not established any real economic, financial, military, informational or political coercion against Lukashenko and his government.

Europeans could use this distinction to consider the type of Belarus they want to shape. This should be a Belarus which has secure, meaningful economic alternatives to Russia; a Belarus which sees the geopolitical and economic sense of having a choice of trading partners; a Belarus which has functioning communication channels. Overall, Europeans should expect that their future relationship with Belarus will go beyond mere transactionalism and value the voices of those who Lukashenko continues to silence. Europeans should seek a Belarus which retains a degree of political room for manoeuvre away from Putin’s military and political influence. The following recommendations set out how it can achieve this.

Support eastern border states

The EU has already made progress in strengthening its defence security arrangements for its eastern flank. For example, the 2022 Strategic Compass aimed to prevent crises in states most vulnerable to Russian (or indeed Belarusian) encroachment, and the EU has developed a targeted “Communication on the EU’s Eastern Regions Bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine” (or “Strong regions for a safer Europe”) programme. This includes the five priority areas of security and resilience; growth and regional prosperity; building on local strengths; connectivity; and empowering its people. The bloc is also channelling funds into shoring up transit routes and financing, including the customs infrastructure along its eastern border which is a target for Russian and Belarusian interference.

However, the EU should more deeply incorporate its support for states that border Belarus—which are facing hybrid pressure, border incidents and spillover risks—into a defence strategy which builds on the NATO model, particularly in its approach to deconfliction. This would mean better aligning military preparedness with diplomatic signalling and crisis-management channels.

For example, NATO maintains a partnership with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe which promotes risk-reduction frameworks and transparency measures among signatory states—including the Vienna Document, which has been signed by the US, all European nations and Russia. Europeans could establish a similar partnership with selected states which builds on Lukashenko’s willingness—up to now—to notify his Western counterparts about activities such as Zapad military drills, where in some instances he has even invited them as observers.

Strengthen connections inside Belarus

To go one step further, however, Europeans—and especially EU border states—should maintain established working-level diplomatic contacts in Belarus, especially those located at EU member-state embassies in Minsk. These could also be third-party intermediaries or use technical-level communication formats, such as hotlines, to relay information about military movements or developments.

This could also rely on trusting selected contacts inside the country itself: for example, there are several initiatives which hold meetings which bring speakers and thinkers together to share both Western and non-Western perspectives, including from inside Belarus and Russia. By acting as a conduit for open communication—and by remaining open and depoliticised—protecting such channels encourages a more open dialogue. This, in turn, mitigates the risk of miscalculation and helps develop a diplomatic environment in Belarus which is less dependent on the relations created through the Union State. The aim for Europeans should be to build a pro-EU constituency inside Belarus through democratic initiatives—not with the intention of overthrowing the regime tomorrow, but rather to embolden those who see it in their interest for Belarus to have normal working relations with the EU.

Europeans could also continue to financially support or work with Belarus’s small- and medium-sized businesses, both inside and outside the country. Directing economic support and capacity building to enterprises within its borders would strengthen the country’s independent economic capacity by allowing it to gradually decouple from other trade relationships. At the external level, in 2022 the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development pledged €4bnfor SMEs which had relocated their businesses abroad. The EU should explore ways in which it can strengthen Belarus’s SMEs inside the country, to help build a constituency which sees partnership with the West, not just Russia, as an advantage.

Opportunities exist for cooperation at the non-profit level, too. While not directly related to European security policy, concerted work by the EU to fund Belarusian NGOs and support apolitical initiatives can help strengthen the country’s national identity and foster conditions for a more fruitful working relationship. Europeans can connect with Belarusian youth and help shape a more democratic future of Belarusian leaders through the funding of communal projects such as Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps for Belarusian students.

The European Commission is funding ArtPower Belarus, in collaboration with the Belarusian Council for Culture and Danish Cultural Institute, from 2022-2028. This demonstrates how outreach in Belarus—with willing internal institutions—can forge a common sense of purpose and prevent the “othering” of either side. The EU should continue to strive for flexible support for civic and political activism, especially at the grassroots level, through institutions such as the European Endowment for Democracy.
Engage with the Belarusian diaspora

Europeans should treat the Belarusian diaspora as a “strategic constituency” and help secure their participation in national and international civil life. For example, despite Belarus’s exit from the Eastern Partnership, the country’s civil society remains active in the initiative. This political knowledge and organisational capacity are vital for educating Europeans and ensuring that Lukashenko’s approach does not condemn the country and its people for any longer than it already has. Indeed, the EU needs to ensure that the Belarusian diaspora remains at the forefront of its policies regarding safe migration and access; it must avoid inadvertently reinforcing the regime’s strategy of repression through exile, lest any temporary or fragmented protections undermine diaspora members’ political and institutional capacity.


The EU should prioritise legal stability and predictability for Belarusian exiles. Where possible, longer-term residence pathways, access to labour markets and recognition of professional qualifications should be expanded and harmonised across member states. Indeed, Europeans need to take transnational repression seriously as a security issue, not only a human rights concern. Surveillance, digital harassment, pressure on family members remaining in Belarus and alleged monitoring activities in EU states challenge European sovereignty and social cohesion. To counter this, the EU should keep pursuing democratic initiatives such as the project “Towards a Local Democracy Agency (LDA) Belarus in Exile”. Its establishment has helped reinforce the notion that exile is not a temporary condition and encourages the need for “sustainable democratic infrastructure” which supports communities in exile. Addressing these practices strengthens both diaspora resilience and internal EU security norms.

In the long term, the EU should introduce more permanent diverse and sustainable funding streams, and move away from reliance on emergency or externally volatile sources. While several exile-based civil society institutions have benefited from multi-year EU funding frameworks—and the EU has committed €200m since 2020 in supporting the Belarusian people—recent reductions in US assistance have exposed structural vulnerabilities. The EU needs to use such funding streams to support independent media, research organisations and civic initiatives in exile, since they are repositories of political memory and organisational capacity.

Europeans should also continue to engage with Belarus’s political opposition on a more formal level, rather than treating it as a protest movement. For example, they generally treat Tsikhanouskaya as the de facto leader of Belarus from her base in Warsaw. This gives Europeans access to a political figure with different views and priorities, and could see the two sides shape future engagement with Belarus via insights from the country’s more civic-minded, democratic channels. The EU should be wary of treating her as the sole alternative to Lukashenko, especially because it is unlikely that Tsikhanouskaya will be installed as his successor—but openness to her influence will bolster trust between Europeans and Belarusian exiled civic society. It will also provide EU member states with an understanding of how the Belarusian state works.

Link diplomacy with action

EU engagement should focus on areas where European interests are directly implicated and where limited leverage still exists. Recent developments, including prisoner releases secured through negotiations with the US and Lukashenko inviting Western officials to observe military drills, suggest that Minsk remains open to selective forms of engagement.

But while targeted incentives can produce limited concessions, the EU should avoid simply replicating the American model. Instead, the bloc must approach conditional engagement as a security instrument rather than simply a human rights policy. Unlike Washington, it has long-term security interests in Belarus—regional stability, border security, migration management, securing its eastern frontier—and needs engagement to be more strategic than transactional.

Europeans should therefore try to couch any diplomatic, economic or symbolic concessions (such as forming high-level diplomatic contacts, limited sanctions relief or participation in dialogue formats) in measurable and verifiable actions. These could include independent verification of the release and treatment of named political prisoners, a sustained halt to politically motivated detentions and access for international humanitarian organisations.


This could build on Lukashenko’s demands for sanctions relief in exchange for Belarus releasing political prisoners and ceasing its aggravation towards Europe’s eastern borders by making such concessions with the conditionality just described. Such engagement with Belarus could help generate durable behavioural change and address underlying sources of regional insecurity.

Untangle Minsk from Moscow

Europeans can also adapt their approach to Minsk based on how America treats it: as a viable, autonomous actor, not an extension of Moscow. The fact that negotiations between Trump and Lukashenko led to the release of prisoners—albeit with hundreds still being held—suggests that the Belarusian leader remains sensitive to economic pressure and to the optics of his own international legitimacy. Trump’s recognition of Lukashenko as Belarus’s legitimate president has only served to reinforce the latter’s willingness to reestablish closer contacts between Minsk and Washington. The US can use this thaw to its advantage to leverage selective sanctions adjustments (for example, easing restrictions on Belarusian potash exports in response to global fertiliser market pressures) and further widen Lukashenko’s limited transactional opening.

Europeans should consider whether closer coordination with Washington, whereby both camps identify common red lines and incentives for better diplomatic ties with Minsk, would deter potential coercion by Lukashenko and prevent him playing the US and Europe against each other. Indeed, the two erstwhile allies finding common ground in their strategy towards Belarus could secure further progress on humanitarian issues and demonstrate to Lukashenko that the US remains key in the protection of Europe’s eastern frontier. It is worth noting that, in this event, the EU should strongly articulate its own priorities—particularly regarding border security and societal agency—and pursue pragmatic coordination at the level of officials, agencies and technical experts.

A practical example of Belarus demonstrating more autonomy is the recent ultimatum proposed to Belarus by Ukraine. Zelensky’s bold statement over the four signal relay stations in Belarus led to their quiet removal (or they were at least turned off), suggesting that Lukashenko can roll back certain decisions—even on military issues. And, even if reports that it was in fact Ukraine which destroyed them are true, Lukashenko has accepted this development without retaliation. His response suggests that he fears the consequences of escalation from Ukraine and other Western allies. But it also supposes that Putin is not yet able to dictate Lukashenko’s every move, not even in zones which Union State forces could view as fundamental to ensuring their continued sovereignty. This episode shows that Lukashenko still retains meaningful room for manoeuvre even in matters of security, and that calibrated pressure from neighbouring states can shape his decisions.

Europeans should exploit this hint of residual agency to discover in which other areas Lukashenko retains an interest in limiting escalation or preserving his room for manoeuvre. They should determine in which other areas calibrated diplomatic and economic pressure could shape Belarusian behaviour and complicate Russian military planning. This could help decouple Belarusian decision-making from Russian power structures and isolate Lukashenko into a more favourable position for further negotiations.

Shaping stabilisation on European terms

By reducing the opportunities for Russian coercion and Belarusian-enabled hybrid pressure on the eastern flank, Europeans can better counter the impact of Russian entrenchment on their neighbour. But Europeans should not frame the recommendations as a part of a rehabilitation for the Belarusian regime. Rather, these policy suggestions should function to safeguard against further deterioration of the stable buffer zone that Belarus once provided for western Europe. Most importantly, they need to address the Belarus that has been created since 2020 and seek to prevent its further entrenchment as a Russian satellite state.

To achieve this, the most important thing Europeans can do is move beyond the false dichotomy between isolation and engagement. Europe can still rebuke Belarus as an externally managed satellite state, for example by disavowing the Lukashenko regime, while providing incentives which help it shape the conditions under which stabilisation unfolds. Europe cannot force rapid change in Minsk’s strategic alignment, but it could help prevent the complete consolidation of a security order in which Europe has no voice.

Europeans should also focus on how their approach to Belarus differs in the short and the long term. In the short term, Europeans need to prioritise preventing Russia’s military configuration in Belarus from becoming permanent and irreversible, and work to limit the extent to which Russia has entrenched itself into Belarusian military institutions. They should aim to separate Belarus from Russia as much as possible by ensuring that Moscow ceases stationing its weapons (conventional or otherwise) on Belarusian territory. At the same time, Europeans need to be aware of continued escalation, such as further military deployments on Belarus’s territory, applying hybrid pressure on member states or facilitating cross-border incidents.


In the long term, Europeans should not aim for Belarus to be aligned with the West; nor should they expect that their intervention will transform Belarus into a democratic state. But the EU should work towards Belarus becoming a country that is sovereign enough to resist becoming a permanent forward base for Russian power, and open enough to maintain a managed relationship with both Europe and Russia. Ideally, Belarus should become sovereign enough that it can make rational decisions—based on the best interests of its country and its people—regarding with which power it wants to be aligned.

As it stands, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine shows no signs of abating. America, for its part, is increasingly reluctant to fund deterrence in EU countries, including those which border Belarus. It is, under Trump, using economic and political posturing to exert pressure on the Lukashenko regime. But Europeans can still find the avenues of cooperation which still exist in the allies’ fractured relationship. Most importantly, the EU needs to grant a degree of agency to its most problematic neighbour.

About the author: 

Vasil Navumau is a former visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He now works as a researcher at the University of Siegen, where he focuses on civic activism in eastern European countries, particularly Ukraine and Belarus, and its transformation via information and communication technologies.

Acknowledgments:

 The author would like to thank Pavel Slunkin and the ECFR editorial team (in particular Amy Sandys and Portia Kentish) for their valuable input and suggestions, as well as Nastassia Zenovich for her graphics.

Source: This work was published at ECFR and produced as part of the project “Portrait of Exiled Belarusians and the Role of Belarus in Russia’s War on Ukraine”, financed by the European Union under the EU4Belarus – Support to Advanced Learning and Training (SALT II) programme.

The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of their individual authors.

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