A Pivotal Shift Towards the East

The West’s engagement in support of the anti-government mass civil protests in Belarus during 2020-2021, which followed the highly disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election and the deep political polarization of Belarusian society, consequently led to the breakdown of the fragile relations between Western political elites and the administration of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (Аляксандр Лукашэнка).

Minsk responded to this unparalleled Western interference in the country’s internal affairs harshly by drastically severing all direct (governmental) and indirect (non-governmental) political, economic, and socio-cultural ties between Belarus and the West. During the 2021-2025 period, Belarus suspended or significantly restricted its participation in Western-led or Western-oriented international or regional platforms, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe (CoE), and the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), viewing them as threats to the country’s internal political stability.

At the same time, Belarus also withdrew from several international treaties and agreements, such as the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Aarhus Convention on Environmental Matters, the Extended Partial Agreements on Sport (EPAS), and the EU–Belarus Agreement on Readmission and Visa Facilitation. This self-isolation reactionary policy has led Minsk to turn towards alternative organizations in the post-Soviet and Eurasian regional architecture, such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which were described by President Lukashenko as “important players in building a just multipolar world order.”

Meanwhile, from July 4, 2024, Belarus officially became the 10th permanent member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and from January 1, 2025, the country formalized its status as one of BRICS’s 13 partner countries, which is seen as a springboard for full membership of the organization.

This pivotal shift in Minsk’s geopolitical course........

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