Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was quicker than many American news networks to pronounce Donald Trump the winner of the recent U.S. presidential election. Lukashenko showered Trump with compliments, and pledged to personally nominate the U.S. president-elect for the Nobel Peace Prize if he keeps his promise to “stop wars” overseas.
It is tempting to read Lukashenko’s flattery as just another world leader wanting to start off on the right foot with the incoming administration in Washington. In fact, there is much more to it: Minsk genuinely hopes that Trump will keep his word by freezing the Ukraine war, defusing U.S.-Russian tensions, and helping anti-liberal mercantilism triumph in a once united West.
Bilateral relations with the United States hold few prospects for Minsk in and of themselves. No matter how indifferent Trump may be toward human rights abuses in countries like Belarus, that alone will not guarantee any progress. Lukashenko simply isn’t all that interesting to Washington, and the Trump administration has never bothered with the finer details of Eastern European politics.
Rather, Minsk is counting on Trump to end the war in Ukraine, something it secretly wishes for. Unlike Russia, Lukashenko never publicly backed the objectives of the “special military operation” and is unlikely to have ever been interested in those objectives.
It is easy to see why: Ukraine’s fall and the establishment of a puppet regime or Russian occupation would immediately create several serious problems for Lukashenko. Belarus would have to compete with Ukraine for Russian subsidies. It would be vulnerable to the Kremlin’s appetite for new conquests. Plus, Ukraine’s surrender to Russia would trigger NATO’s eastern flank to militarize more actively, increasing risks for Minsk and inducing Moscow to expand its own presence in Belarus.
Minsk’s involvement in Russia’s war of aggression as well as Lukashenko’s brutal repression of protesters following a sham presidential election in 2020 drove a wedge between Belarus and the West, costing him any remaining room for maneuver. Clearly, though, Lukashenko is tired of playing second fiddle to Russia. He would much prefer a return to the state of affairs before 2020: when he could act independently, potentially as a peacekeeper, without damaging his alliance with Russia.
Minsk has made its eagerness for change apparent in timid signals to the West, including five recent waves of pardons for political prisoners and its rhetoric surrounding peace in Ukraine. Lukashenko’s prescriptions for peace have never strayed far from what influential Global South powers (such as China, Brazil, and Türkiye) and European “dissenters” (Hungary and Slovakia) have proposed. They typically include ending Western military aid to Ukraine, an immediate ceasefire and troop withdrawal from the front, deploying peacekeepers (Lukashenko has even suggested Belarusians for this role), Ukraine’s neutrality, and the postponement of territorial disputes.
Though such rhetoric is at odds with Moscow’s hawkish position and Minsk’s status as a staging ground for the Russian armed forces, Lukashenko has repeated it consistently in recent years. Trump is Lukashenko’s best bet at Ukraine being pushed toward a ceasefire using his formula—or something like it.
The probability of such a ceasefire remains unknown. Both sides have serious objections. But were it to materialize, Lukashenko would try to make the most of the situation. There is no doubt that Minsk would rush to seek a place in the peace process from the outset in the hope that it might just be the key to being taken seriously again.
Right now, it is hard to imagine negotiations between Russia and Ukraine returning to Belarus, given the failure of the earlier Minsk agreements aimed at ending the fighting in the Donbas, not to mention Lukashenko’s obvious partisanship. However, Belarus could still participate in negotiations as a stakeholder. Lukashenko has insisted many times that he must not only be a party to the dialogue but obtain separate security guarantees for Belarus (granted, he never specified who should become the guarantor or from whom Belarus requires protection).
Lukashenko’s seemingly overambitious bet could actually win if peace talks go beyond a simple ceasefire. Moscow could use another completely loyal voice at the table. It has happened before. At talks in Istanbul in March 2022, the Russian delegation included Belarus in its draft treaty as one of Ukraine’s security guarantors. It could happen again.
The West and Ukraine do not and will not care about any guarantees or commitments Lukashenko signs: few believe he is truly independent, especially in matters of war and peace. But it is unlikely that anyone will torpedo the whole process just to avoid yielding to Moscow on such a trivial issue. The moment will be too critical to point out that Lukashenko is illegitimate and does not deserve a seat at the adults’ table.
This, then, is Minsk’s intermediate goal: to use clamor for a regional reset to shed its untouchable status. Even if negotiations fail to achieve sustainable peace in Ukraine, sharing a table with the big players will in itself change Lukashenko’s status from European pariah to something less toxic.
If partial sanctions relief for Russia follows a ceasefire, it will give Lukashenko grounds to demand similar concessions for himself. His argument here would be quite sound: if sanctions on an aggressor state are being lifted, it makes no sense to keep sanctions imposed for helping that aggressor. Indeed, of all the restrictions placed on Belarus by the West, the most painful sectoral and financial sanctions came specifically because of Minsk’s support for Russia’s war.
Today, the West’s asking price for sanctions relief is incompatible with the survival of Lukashenko’s regime: sweeping democratization and an end to supporting Russia’s war. The new U.S. administration gives Lukashenko hope that the West’s bar might be lowered, making a way forward at least somewhat feasible. In short, Minsk is counting on Trump’s actions vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine to bring it partially out of isolation in the West, without meaningful concessions on its part.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed to happen: Trump’s second presidency merely presents a window of opportunity for Minsk. Moreover, that window will only open if several conditions are met at once: the war is stopped, and Moscow retains a strong enough bargaining position at peace talks.
Lukashenko faces worse outcomes in terms of isolation. A protracted war or the fall of Ukraine would spell the preservation of sanctions on Minsk indefinitely, while Moscow’s defeat would create existential risks for the Belarusian regime.
Lukashenko’s expectations of Trump have another, more global dimension: one that puts him on common ground with like-minded leaders from Budapest to Beijing. Minsk dreams of dealing with a West ruled by multiple Trumps, a place where mercantile realpolitik triumphs and Lukashenko is accepted for who he is, no lecturing necessary.
That is the maximalist program. Even if Trump’s example does not prove contagious in Europe, Minsk expects Trump to at least bulldoze transatlantic solidarity around liberal democracy. For Lukashenko, the collective liberal West’s self-destruction and values-free relations with individual states don’t sound too shabby either.
