Lukashenko gains from Wagner mutiny

K. P. Nayar

Strategic Analyst

THE biggest and most immediate beneficiary of the Wagner Private Military Company’s (PMC) rebellion in Russia is Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. In a week of fast-moving developments — Lukashenko was at the centre of it all — no one remembered his country’s humiliation in the United Nations General Assembly four weeks ago when Belarus was roundly defeated in the Security Council election. There was a contest only against Belarus. The remaining four vacancies were filled unanimously by their respective regional groups.

It would be interesting to watch if Belarus will use its new-found clout to build a bloc of pro-Russian states beyond its immediate neighbourhood.

On Friday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered a series of steps to strengthen the country’s military fortifications along its border with Belarus. This followed the arrival of Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus through a deal brokered by Lukashenko to end the PMC’s rebellion. Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda pleaded with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to help strengthen his country’s border with Belarus as soon as Lukashenko’s successful mediation became known. The Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia —are trembling because Prigozhin’s new home country is just 35 km from Vilnius, where these nations will be the focus of a NATO summit on July 11-12. After the PMC’s rebellion, which shook the world, nothing can be ruled out in that volatile region.

For 16 months, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused Lithuania’s pleas to permanently station German troops in the Baltic state. With Belarus now set to play a bigger role in the Russia-Ukraine war, Germany last week agreed to set up its regular military post and station an army brigade of 4,000 soldiers there. During the NATO summit, the western military alliance may decide to do more for the Baltic states and take steps against bigger regional ambitions being harboured in Minsk.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko’s standing elsewhere in his neighbourhood has undergone a big change. The Lower House of Russia’s Parliament, the State Duma, began its session on Tuesday with a tribute to Lukashenko. Members stood up and applauded him. There were demands on Moscow state television that Putin should bestow his country’s highest civilian honour, ‘Hero of the Russian Federation’, on Lukashenko. For better or worse, it is clear that whether the war in Ukraine ends or prolongs, Lukashenko will be a man for every diplomat and strategist to watch — from New York to New Delhi and from Tokyo to Toronto.

As this situation develops, Indian diplomacy can rest on its laurels that it is already well placed in its dealings with Minsk. A year and a half ago, the European Union tried to turn India against Belarus. The EU deployed the Secretary General of the European External Action Service to get India to at least issue a statement against Belarus for what this official said was a plot by Lukashenko to destabilise Europe by flooding it with Arab refugees through the Belarus-Poland border. India refused and confined itself to issuing a bland statement that India and the EU ‘agreed on the need to de-escalate the situation and arrive at an early resolution’. The EU appeared to be oblivious of the fact that India and Belarus have been ‘strategic partners’ since 1991. Nowadays, bilateral strategic partnerships are concluded with any and every country. But three decades ago, they were selective, rare and never just a routine diplomatic gesture announced during a state visit.

As India has nurtured its relations with Belarus since then, it is now in a position to better evaluate its options in the entire region. India opened its embassy in Lithuania on March 31. Last year, New Delhi posted an Ambassador to Estonia. It may open a Mission in Latvia, which is at present looked after by the Indian Embassy in Stockholm. A new initiative, India-Nordic-Baltic Conclave, was launched in November 2020. India’s interests in the region are, therefore, not to be glossed over.

Countries which are in competition with India for a larger diplomatic footprint in most regions of the world are envious in the aftermath of the Wagner mutiny. Eight months ago, India received Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei for a meeting of the India-Belarus Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation. Som Parkash, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, acted as Makei’s counterpart during the meeting and the visitor reviewed bilateral relations with his counterpart, S Jaishankar. In the light of a worldwide shortage of critical fertilisers since the war in Ukraine began, India is looking at Belarus for supplying potash, which it has in abundance. Sadly, a fortnight after his visit to New Delhi, Makei died.

Belarus now has tactical nuclear weapons, supplied by Russia, on its soil. More such weapons are due to arrive from across the border before the end of this year, according to the Presidents of Belarus and Russia. On Friday, in a speech ahead of his country’s independence day (July 3), Lukashenko assured the world that these Russian tactical nuclear weapons would never be used. “I am certain that we will never have to use them while they are here. But no enemy will ever set foot on our land because they are here. That is why they must be stationed here, in Belarus, in a reliable place,” he said. Also on Friday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov assured the world that Russia, as a recognised nuclear-weapon state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), controlled those tactical weapons. He said their deployment in Belarus was forced on Moscow and insisted that it did not violate the NPT. Belarus has signed with Russia something akin to India’s civil nuclear deal with the US. A civil nuclear power station constructed by Russia is now operating in Belarus.

It would be interesting to watch if Belarus will use its new-found diplomatic and military clout to build a bloc of pro-Russian states beyond its immediate neighbourhood. The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) of six post-Soviet states offers an opportunity for exploring something similar to the now-extinct Warsaw Pact. The CSTO was militarily used to stabilise Kazakhstan, when regime change was attempted there at the US’s instigation. Notably, Putin spoke to a former CSTO head of state, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, during the latest crisis.

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