Belarus is organizing a presidential election on Sunday which should see the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, who in 30 years in power has eradicated all forms of opposition.
Here are five things to know about this former Soviet republic, allied with Russia and with nine million inhabitants.
Soumis au Kremlin
The re-election of Alexander Lukashenko in August 2020 with officially 80% of the votes triggered a peaceful protest movement of unprecedented scale. For weeks, power wavered.
But the protest was ultimately put down with thousands of arrests, violence causing several deaths and heavy prison sentences. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are fleeing the country, including the president’s popular number one rival, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
Targeted by heavy Western sanctions, the power of Alexander Lukashenko is turning towards the Kremlin, sealing an alliance and abandoning the balancing act between Moscow and the West that he had been tending for years.
In February 2022, Belarusian territory served as a rear base for Vladimir Putin’s forces to invade Ukraine. Then, Moscow deployed tactical nuclear weapons during the summer of 2023, a threat to kyiv but also to NATO members bordering Belarus (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland).
Ravaged by war and Chernobyl
Of all the Soviet republics, Belarus paid the heaviest price in proportion to population during World War II.
First targeted by the Nazi offensive of June 1941, 2.3 million of its inhabitants, or a quarter of the population, died during the conflict.
In April 1986, a new disaster: the core of reactor number 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in northern Ukraine.
But it is neighboring Belarus which suffers the most serious radioactive fallout: 23% of its territory is irradiated, including 1.8 million hectares of agricultural land.
An exclusion zone of 1,700 km2 prohibited from access is created, largely on Belarusian territory, and around 330,000 people are evacuated.
Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature and exiled critic of Lukashenko, Svetlana Alexievitch has written a poignant book on the consequences of Chernobyl.
Potatoes and tractors
The Belarusian economy is still largely state-controlled, a legacy of the USSR dear to Alexander Lukashenko, a former kolkhoz director.
-Agricultural production – dairy products, potatoes and other carrots – remains very renowned in the former USSR and a driving force of the economy.
Alexander Lukashenko likes to appear in the fields. In 2018, during a visit to the Kremlin, he gave Vladimir Putin four bags of potatoes. Two years earlier, he handed actor Steven Seagal a carrot during a meeting in Belarus, telling him to eat it. The former American star did so.
On an industrial and manufacturing level, Belarus is also known for its tractors – a national pride – and its lingerie.
Forests and the migration crisis
A vast plain without access to the sea, the Belarusian territory, long divided between areas of Polish and Russian influence, has large natural spaces: swamps, lakes, rivers and forests.
To the west, it shares the Bialowieza Forest with Poland. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is one of the last primary forests in Europe and a large reservoir of biodiversity.
But it is threatened by deforestation. Since the end of 2021, it has also been the scene of the migration crisis between Poland and Belarus.
Warsaw accuses Minsk of having incited thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East to come to Belarus and cross its border to the west to destabilize the EU.
In response, Poland built an anti-migrant wall that cuts through the forest and, according to environmentalists, disrupts the movement of animals.
Death penalty
Belarus is the last country in Europe and the former USSR still practicing capital punishment.
The date of the execution, with a bullet in the back of the head, is never made public, the bodies of the prisoners are not returned to the families and no information is communicated on the place of their burial.
According to NGOs, nearly 400 people have been executed in Belarus since 1991. The last publicly announced execution dates back to 2022.
