I’ve been saying Lukashenko is smart from the start. His buffoon act is just that: an act. This is a guy that’s managed to work with the conditions he started with pretty masterfully considering his own political objectives from his first days in power.
Not a lot of people know this, but at one point Lukashenko was an anti-corruption crusader and a potential Russian President, but when it became clear that those things weren’t going to work out he shifted tone and became Putin’s courtier. And in that role, he’s managed to maintain both power in Belarus and Belarussian autonomy (as much as could be realistically obtained without military separation from Russia) for the entire time he’s been in control.
Whenever he needed something from Moscow, he’d talk about Russification and joining Russia before eventually making some kind of excuse or mistake. When Putin overstepped, he was not afraid to arrest his agents and reemphasize Belarussian identity. When his power was threatened by his own Maidan, he got Putin to put it down, and in return all he had to do was host the Russians’ invasion, not actually take part. Oh, and let’s not forget the whole, ‘I “accidentally” reveal all the Russian axes of advance’ picture. Lukashenko probably considered the invasion moronic from the start, and just like Kazakhstan he’s not exactly hurt by Russians getting fed into a meatgrinder and losing influence.
The biggest danger to him right now would be Belarussian veterans from Ukraine metastasizing into the core of a new movement against him, and if he wants to survive that he’s not going to throw troops into Ukraine for Putin.
The comments about him getting good trade deals and economic concessions I think I got from other commenters. There’s a lot of people that know about this.
If search for 'Lukashenko union" in the subreddit you’ll see a lot of comments talking about this same thing. /u/BigFreakingZombie shows up in a lot of the results, so you could ask him to elaborate.
Link ??
This might be it.
It was /u/Cook_0612:
The comments about him getting good trade deals and economic concessions I think I got from other commenters. There’s a lot of people that know about this.
To what? They guy with the Lukashenko theory? It was a while ago and I didn’t bookmark it or anything. I’ll try to dredge it up. No guarantees though
Yes, if you can find it… It sounds like an interesting theory
This guy talks about Lukashenko a lot and how he has and is maneuvering: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/xxu0gi/reason_i_should_not_be_president/irf4hs6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
If search for 'Lukashenko union" in the subreddit you’ll see a lot of comments talking about this same thing. /u/BigFreakingZombie shows up in a lot of the results, so you could ask him to elaborate.