This episode deals with the formative period of the Lukashenka system of power. After winning the only free and fair elections in 1994, “the last dictator of Europe’’ started to build his authoritarian regime. His initial ambitions went beyond Belarus itself. His dream was to become a leader of a new federal Russian-Belarusian state. The coming to power of Vladimir Putin frustrated these plans and at the same time started a new period of Belarusian-Russian relations.

Hosted by: Maciek Makulski

Guest Speaker: Anna Dyner, analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs within the International Security Program. She’s work focuses on Belarus’s domestic and foreign policy, Russian security policy, and Russia’s role in the post-Soviet space.

Background readings:

Andrew Wilson, Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship, Yale University Press, 2011

Andrzej Poczobut, System Białoruś, Editio, 2013

What’s New with Belarus, New Eastern Europe, Issue 5/2018, September-October 2018, https://neweasterneurope.eu/product/issue-52018-whats-new-belarus/

****
This podcast is financed by Solidarity Fund PL within the framework of the Polish development cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland and the grant titled: “In Solidarity with Belarus”. The podcast expresses exclusively the views of the speakers and cannot be identified with the official stance of the Solidarity Fund PL nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.