This Week’s Highlights

• Rather than focusing on the brass ring of nuclear arms limitations and reductions, policymakers should try for something broader yet more modest: a global treaty that includes China, Russia and the United States and prohibits interference with both commercial and government satellite operations during peacetime, write Michael Markey, Jonathan Pearl, and Benjamin Bahney of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research. Such a treaty would ensure that each power could maintain a basic awareness of the growth and movement of other powers’ nuclear and conventional forces—allaying mutual fears of arms racing, deterring military adventurism and stabilizing military competition, according to the authors.
• While Russia is not a superpower, it remains one of the few countries that both defines its interests in global rather than regional terms and retains limited but real global power-projection capabilities, writes Prof. Nikolas K. Gvosdev in a primer that attempts to assess Russia’s impact on a vital U.S. interest: maintaining a balance of power in Europe and Asia that promotes peace and stability with a continuing U.S. leadership role. Its main conclusion: As the United States endeavors to retain favorable balances of power in both these key regions, Gvosdev argues, its interests are best served by having Russia remain an independent pole within the international system rather than grow even closer with China and forge a formalized, strategic Sino-Russian entente.
• Every single thing that Russia stands accused of doing in the United States from 2016 onward it has previously accused the United States of doing, writes Russian-American author Anna Arutunyan. Moscow is showing its capacity to act, in other words, just as it believes the United States is acting everywhere else. The ultimate irony, writes Arutunyan, is that whatever Russia’s goals, its interference has neither furthered nor defended its interests. The United States has often projected its own fears and vulnerabilities onto Russia. Moscow is doing the same, just in the opposite direction.  
• As of today, Russia cannot be described as a leader in the AI race, write Russian International Affairs Council’s Nikolai Markotkin and Kommersant’s Elena Chernenko. Even if AI development becomes Russia’s highest priority, Moscow essentially has no chance of catching up with Washington and Beijing in this field. Nevertheless, smart investing and capitalizing on the country’s competitive advantages, such as highly skilled computer specialists and large domestic IT companies, could deliver results in the medium and long term. Russian positions have been traditionally strong in the military sector, but the successful development of other AI-related sectors is also possible. Under favorable conditions, argue Markotkin and Chernenko, Russia is quite capable of becoming a serious player and even a local leader in certain areas.  
• A cogent case can be made for why the current Russian-Chinese relationship is not simply transactional, an axis of convenience (or other similar terms of art) and at the same time unlikely to become a military alliance, writes CNA’s Michael Kofman. The inevitable outcome of U.S. strategy today, Kofman writes, is to engage in activities that will only further increase Sino-Russian comity. Additionally, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, David Shullman, and Dan McCormick of the Center for a New American Security argue that approaches designed to drive a grand wedge between Russia and China are unlikely to work. Instead, they write that the United States should monitor and plan for, limit and—where possible—pull at the seams in Russian-Chinese relations.
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s erratic behavior and inconsistent pronouncements create the impression that his regime is on its last legs, writes Carnegie Moscow Center’s Maxim Samorukov, yet his apparent panic is likely to prove misleading. Belarusian society has clearly outgrown its veteran populist leader. A country with a burgeoning tech sector and the highest number per capita of European Schengen area visas needs a more complex and responsive political system than Lukashenko can ever provide, Samorkuov argues, but this does not guarantee imminent change. Outdated regimes can prove extremely resilient if favored by broader geopolitics, and Lukashenko, who, from his position atop a geopolitical fault line, will weather every storm as long as Russia and the West mistrust him less than they do each other. 

 

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

New Cold War/saber rattling:

“Xi Jinping Is Not Stalin,” Michael McFaul, Foreign Affairs, 08.10.20: The author, professor of political science and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, writes:

• “[I]n a series of speeches this summer, senior officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump have cast the United States and China as antagonists in a new Cold War. … U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien compared Chinese President Xi Jinping directly to the Soviet dictator in power when the actual Cold War began: ‘Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization. The Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor.’”
• “[I]s Xi really Stalin’s heir, as O’Brien claimed and as other U.S. officials seem to think? The basis for such a comparison is thin.”
• “Xi most closely approximates Stalin in the way he rules his country: he could well remain in power for decades and has created a cult of personality that would impress Stalin’s propagandists. … But ‘Xi-ism’ is still not Stalinism. Stalin’s regime was far more totalitarian in its control over every aspect of Soviet citizens’ lives. … Chinese citizens enjoy much greater autonomy over their own economic well-being than Soviet citizens did. … Stalin openly proclaimed his desire for a global communist revolution. … Xi, by contrast, has not orchestrated the overthrow of a single regime.”
• “The United States must understand China ‘as it is,’ … not as some in Washington want it to be. The Trump administration undoubtedly would like a Stalinist leader to be in charge in Beijing, if only to better mobilize and unite Americans against him. But China ‘as it is’ is not ruled by a new Stalin. Asserting otherwise doesn’t change that fact and gets in the way of developing a sophisticated, successful U.S. policy to contain, deter and engage China over the long haul.”

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant developments.

Impact of the pandemic:

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“The World Can Still Be Destroyed in a Flash: It seems that the United States is plunging into a new arms race without learning the lessons of the last,” Editorial Board, New York Times, 08.06.20: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “The nuclear weapons dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago this week wreaked a devastation never before seen in human warfare. Yet they were firecrackers compared with the nuclear weapons that were soon developed … Today Americans are more likely to identify climate change as the greatest man-made threat to the planet. … Yet even with the Cold War long over and stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the Russian and American arsenals sharply reduced through a series of nuclear arms treaties … there are no grounds for complacency. The world can still be destroyed in a flash.”
• “Mr. Trump has said he is working on a new arms control agreement with Russia and is seeking to include China in the talks. But his administration has always found it easier to tear up treaties than to sign them … As the special envoy for arms control, Marshall Billingslea, boasted in May, ‘We know how to win these races, and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion.’”
• “The 75th anniversary of Hiroshima is a good time to revive serious public concern about nuclear weapons. The pandemic may leave little room for other fears, but public health and economic recovery should not have to compete for resources with a needless and enormously expensive new arms race. As Jessica Matthews, former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes … it would be good for the five original nuclear powers—the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China—to formally endorse the principle set forth by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at their 1985 summit, that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’”

“How Satellites Can Save Arms Control. A Global Noninterference Treaty Would Reduce Nuclear Risks,” Michael Markey, Jonathan Pearl and Benjamin Bahney, Foreign Affairs, 08.05.20: The authors, senior fellows at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research, write:

• “Rather than focusing on the brass ring of nuclear arms limitations and reductions, policymakers should try for something broader yet more modest: a global treaty that includes China, Russia and the United States and prohibits interference with both commercial and government satellite operations during peacetime.”
• “Such a satellite noninterference treaty would ensure that each power could maintain a basic awareness of the growth and movement of other powers’ nuclear and conventional forces—allaying mutual fears of arms racing, deterring military adventurism and stabilizing military competition. Until there is once again an opportunity to pursue more ambitious and comprehensive deals, it offers the best chance of strengthening global stability and stopping arms control from collapsing entirely.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Elections interference:

“There Is No Russian Plot Against America. The Kremlin’s Electoral Interference Is All Madness and No Method,” Anna Arutunyan, Foreign Affairs, 08.05.20: The author, a writer and analyst, writes:

• “Russian officials say and write a great deal about the United States and their own security objectives and neuralgias—enough to give a clear sense of their worldview and potential motivations for meddling in the U.S. political process. What emerges is not a cunning, systematic scheme to corrode American democracy from within. Rather, it is a series of uncoordinated and often opportunistic responses to a paranoid belief that Russia is under attack from the United States and must do everything it can to defend itself.”
• “Every single thing that Russia stands accused of doing in the United States from 2016 onward it has previously accused the United States of doing. Moscow is showing its capacity to act, in other words, just as it believes the United States is acting everywhere else.”
• “The ultimate irony is that whatever Russia’s goals … its interference has neither furthered nor defended its interests. Although it may seem to Americans that the United States could be a lot tougher on Russia, from Moscow’s perspective U.S. policy is now far more aggressive than the Russians could have expected in 2016, and many in the government lament the deterioration in relations.”
• “[F]or Moscow, interference is not about backing a specific candidate, even if it happened to appear that way in 2016. If there is another Russian operation, expect contrarian messages targeting both candidates’ campaigns and highlighting generally divisive issues such as the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic. The messaging will not be coherent, and it will have no further purpose than to provoke arguments. Russia does not ultimately care whether the United States is a democracy. … The United States has often projected its own fears and vulnerabilities onto Russia. Moscow is doing the same, just in the opposite direction.”

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"Russia and US National Interests: Maintaining a Balance of Power in Europe and Asia," Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Russia Matters, 08.05.20: The author, the Captain Jerome E. Levy chair at the U.S. Naval War College and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), writes:

• "While Russia is not a superpower, it remains one of the few countries that both defines its interests in global rather than regional terms and retains limited but real global power-projection capabilities. Meanwhile, U.S. national security continues to be guided by the premise that the United States cannot allow another state to become the preponderant power in either Europe or Asia, the two continents Russia famously spans."
• "This primer attempts to assess Russia’s impact on a vital U.S. interest: maintaining a balance of power in Europe and Asia that promotes peace and stability with a continuing U.S. leadership role. Its main conclusion: As the United States endeavors to retain favorable balances of power in both these key regions, its interests are best served by having Russia remain an independent pole within the international system rather than grow even closer with China and forge a formalized, strategic Sino-Russian entente."

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Protesting Putin: Kremlin Faces Revolt in the Regions,” Henry Foy, Financial Times, 08.05.20: The author, Moscow bureau chief for the news outlet, writes:

• “Vladimir Putin had been reassured that the regional election in September 2018 would be nothing to worry about. Mr. Putin’s man would retain the governorship of Khabarovsk Krai, a region in Russia’s far east, securing a small majority in the first round, one of his intelligence agencies had predicted. The upstart local opposition challenger was no threat.”
• “But the confident briefing also came with a footnote of caution — albeit one that reached the wrong conclusion. ‘A situation has developed in the Khabarovsk region that about half of the region’s residents are unhappy with the existing state of affairs in the economy and social sphere, but they do not see real alternatives to the current governor,’ it concluded. The results suggested the discontent was felt by significantly more than half. Eighteen days after that official forecast was circulated inside the Kremlin, opposition candidate Sergei Furgal from the Liberal Democratic party (LDPR) defeated the incumbent from Mr. Putin’s United Russia by a landslide 69.6 percent.”
• “Since July 9, when Mr. Furgal was brusquely arrested, bundled into a car and flown to a Moscow jail on murder charges dating back 15 years, tens of thousands of people have protested, blocking the main streets of the region's capital Khabarovsk, close to the Chinese border, with daily rallies. At first they demanded Mr. Furgal be sent back to face a trial in his home city, 6,000 kilometers east of Moscow. Now they are demanding Mr. Putin’s resignation.”
• “The so-far disparate ripples of regional rebellion do not as yet present an existential threat to Mr. Putin’s national authority.”
• “‘The people’s anger is not going away. So even if we see some calm, a lull, it could flare up again,’ says Artyom Lukin, a political scientist based in Vladivostok. ‘In Russia, you never know when things are going to explode.’”

“Russia's Far East Stands Up to the Kremlin—and Shows Putin Slipping,” Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Washington Post, 08.03.20: The author, chair of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, writes:

• “The city of Khabarovsk in the Far East has been a thorn in the government's side since September 2018, when the Kremlin-backed incumbent lost the gubernatorial election in a landslide. His victorious opponent … happened to be a lawmaker from the Kremlin-friendly nationalist (and misnamed) Liberal Democratic Party by the name of Sergei Furgal. But this almost didn't matter. As in many recent elections in Russia … pro-Kremlin candidates are losing to whomever else is listed on the ballot.”
• “Last month, that elected governor was … placed in pretrial detention on charges of organizing murders in the early 2000s when he was a businessman. The reaction was immediate. Residents took to the streets in numbers never before seen in Khabarovsk—and have continued to do so. According to media accounts, a July 25 rally drew some 50,000 people, about one-tenth of the city's population. The equivalent demonstration in Moscow would number 1.2 million people.”
• “One immediate consequence of the Khabarovsk protests has been a realization that state control of television, ensured in the early years of Vladimir Putin's rule, is no longer as important as it once was. Despite the absence of coverage on national TV, a Levada Center survey released last week showed that 83 percent of Russians are aware of the rallies in Khabarovsk—and 45 percent support them. … Moreover, about a third of Russians say they would take part in similar protests in their own regions.”
• “In September, some three dozen Russian regions will hold elections for legislatures and city councils in what is widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for next year's national parliamentary election. … Of course, the Kremlin could opt for … ‘winning’ the vote count if not the election. But Khabarovsk may have just shown the rest of Russia what could happen afterward.”

Defense and aerospace:

“Developing Artificial Intelligence in Russia: Objectives and Reality,” Nikolai Markotkin and Elena Chernenko, Carnegie Moscow Center, 08.05.20: The authors, an expert with the Russian International Affairs Council and a journalist with Kommersant, write:

• “President Vladimir Putin has said on numerous occasions that the leader in the field of AI would become ‘the master of the world.’ Until recently, however, Russia remained virtually the only large country without its own AI development strategy. That changed in October 2019, when the country adopted a long-discussed National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence Through 2030.”
• “The Russian government finances industry-specific projects—quite generously by Russian standards—which testifies to the high priority assigned to this field. The application of AI in the military industry, in which Russia’s position is traditionally strong, is the subject of particular attention.”
• “As of today, Russia cannot be described as a leader in the AI race. Even if AI development becomes Russia’s highest priority, Moscow essentially has no chance of catching up with Washington and Beijing in this field. Nevertheless, smart investing and capitalizing on the country’s competitive advantages, such as highly skilled computer specialists and large domestic IT companies, could deliver results in the medium and long term. Russian positions have been traditionally strong in the military sector, but the successful development of other AI-related sectors is also possible. Under favorable conditions, Russia is quite capable of becoming a serious player and even a local leader in certain areas.”

“Vladimir Putin Is No Mastermind, but He Has Played Russia's Cards Well,” James Holmes, The National Interest, 08.09.20: The author, J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College, writes:

• “Russian weapons acquisitions invert the pattern from the Cold War, when the Soviet military was vast in numbers but backward in technology. Quantity, believed Soviet chieftains, boasted a quality all its own. Modern-day Russia prefers to invest in small numbers of high-quality armaments at the expense of quantity. Whether Russian mariners, aviators and soldiers can compensate for the resulting shortfall in mass remains in doubt. Quantity isn’t everything. But if the lynchpin of strategy is to deliver more combat power than the foe at the scene of combat at the decisive time, a few impressive platforms may not suffice. Quantity still matters.”

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

“Putin’s Security Forces Are Increasingly Unsure About Putin: Anti-government protests are growing, and the Kremlin doesn’t have stormtroopers willing to mount a crackdown,” Mark Galeotti, Foreign Policy, 08.04.20: The author, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), writes:

• “Suppose you ordered a crackdown and nobody came? The continuing protests in the Russian city of Khabarovsk, triggered by the arrest of the elected local governor, do not simply demonstrate pent-up dissatisfaction toward Vladimir Putin’s regime—they also demonstrate some of the potential limitations of its control over the security forces. As the Kremlin seems to be pivoting toward a renewed campaign of repression, the question of the morale and loyalty of its enforcers becomes crucial.”
• “The [Khabarovsk] police have not just done little to prevent the protests; they have also escorted the marches and fraternized with demonstrators who chanted ‘thank you, police’ after officers handed out face masks.”
• “In part, it is simply that no one has any appetite for a showdown so long as the protests are—largely—confined to a single city and still have local opinion on their side. The Kremlin can afford to wait and simply suppress any mention of Khabarovsk in the mass media. However, this hesitation also seems to reflect the unease Moscow is feeling about how far it could rely on its security forces in a crisis that would pit them against the local population.”
• “The Khabarovsk protests are not going to bring down Putin—but they have highlighted that one of the key fronts in any future efforts to do so will be in the hearts and minds of his praetorians.”

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:

• No significant developments.

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

“Navigating Sino-Russian Defense Cooperation,” Andrea Kendall-Taylor, David Shullman and Dan McCormick, War on The Rocks, 08.05.20: The authors, affiliates of the Center for a New American Security, write:

• “Looking forward, two sets of drivers are likely to facilitate, if not deepen, their [Russia’s and China’s] defense cooperation. … First, a sustained U.S. hardline approach against both Russia and China creates common cause between them. … Second, Russia and China have complementary needs and capabilities that they can leverage to advance their great-power pursuits.”
• “Despite these drivers, limits to their defense cooperation remain. … Historic mistrust, a lack of cultural consonance and the growing asymmetry in the relationship (for instance, Putin has no desire to become a junior partner) are barriers to deeper relations. … Also, China’s rise has the potential to hurt Russian interests in key regions like Central Asia and the Arctic. … Beijing could eventually encroach on Russian arms sales, and Russian officials also regularly object to Chinese intellectual property theft.”
• “Skeptics continue to argue that Russia and China are unlikely to enter into a formal alliance. But this sets the wrong bar. Russian-Chinese cooperation, particularly in the defense realm, has the potential to create significant challenges for the United States over the next five to 10 years, even if their relationship falls short of a formal alliance.”
• “First, deepening Sino-Russian defense relations would amplify each country’s ability to project power and more visibly and credibly signal to onlooking countries their willingness to challenge U.S. dominance in key regions. … Second, their sustained coordination would accelerate efforts to erode U.S. military advantages … Beyond the Indo-Pacific, greater coordination between Moscow and Beijing could accelerate both countries’ research and development efforts, allowing them to innovate together more rapidly than the United States. … Finally, overt defense cooperation between Russia and China could complicate U.S. defense plans and capacity.”
• “Approaches designed to drive a grand wedge between Russia and China … are unlikely to work. Instead, the United States should monitor and plan for, limit and—where possible—pull at the seams in Russian-Chinese relations.”

“The Emperors League: Understanding Sino-Russian Defense Cooperation,” Michael Kofman, War on the Rocks, 08.06.20: The author, director and a senior research scientist at CNA Corporation and a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, writes:

• “A cogent case can be made for why the current [Russian-Chinese] relationship is not simply transactional, an axis of convenience (or other similar terms of art) and at the same time unlikely to become a military alliance.”
• “First, the relationship is not premised on ‘convenience.’ It is not a product of recent events or a specific circumstance in which both countries have found opportunity in alignment. This rapprochement has deep roots traversing more than 30 years. … Second, defense transactions are not the driver of cooperation. … Third, although it is not a formal alliance, that should matter little for U.S. purposes. … [B]ehavior is what matters more than what is written on paper. … Finally, it would help to dispense with some prevailing tropes and tautologies that tend to obscure the dynamic in Sino-Russian relations. Russia is not China’s junior partner, nor does Beijing treat it as such.”
• “Washington would need a tectonic shift in current strategy towards one of these powers to substantially affect the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Such revisions remain unacceptable to the Washington policy consensus.”
• “The United States should look to allies in counter-balancing Russian or Chinese influence in flank theaters and compete for relative influence among partners like India. … [T]he inevitable outcome of U.S. strategy today is to engage in activities that will only further increase Sino-Russian comity. This comity will endure or deteriorate of its own accord. The United States is a catalyst in this equation, but the relationship has its own rationale born in the strategies and outlooks of the other two powers. … The U.S. goal at this stage should … [be] to recognize the strategic implications and potential costs for U.S. strategy in these respective contests and seek to mitigate the effects by leveraging its own network of allies and partners as potential counter-balancers.”

“Peering Into the Future of Sino-Russian Cyber Security Cooperation,” Adam Segal, War on the Rocks, 08.10.20: The author, the Ira A. Lipman chair in emerging technologies and national security and director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes:

• “Beijing and Moscow have long wanted to control their domestic internets. Now they are working together to remake global cyberspace in their own image. The two launch widespread cyber operations that threaten U.S. interests, and they want to reshape the internet to reduce U.S. influence.”
• “China and Russia have over the past five years worked together to tighten controls on their domestic internet and promoted the idea of cyber sovereignty to diminish U.S. sway over the global governance of cyberspace.”
• “The United States has long argued that an open, global internet serves its political, economic and diplomatic interests. Russian and Chinese cyber cooperation reinforces and accelerates the splintering of cyberspace into more controlled, national internets. … [T]heir collaboration, and their increasing ability to use the United Nations to promote cyber sovereignty, provides diplomatic and political support to states that want to control and restrict online information. In addition, their technical cooperation demonstrates what is possible with filtering, blocking and censorship.”
• “The United States does not have an obvious response on the technical side. Russia’s partnership with Huawei is in part driven by the breakdown of relations, and U.S. and E.U. economic sanctions on Russian companies. With those remaining in place, there is little alternative the United States can offer.
• “U.S. efforts should be focused on combating Chinese and Russian efforts to promote cyber sovereignty through the United Nations and other international organizations. … In the wake of the interference in the 2016 election, the United States and its allies have increasingly called for online content moderation and other controls on disinformation. … Any new strategy will … require acknowledging the link between U.S. domestic efforts to regulate content and cyber diplomacy. Washington should have a coherent argument for what it is trying to accomplish at home before it convinces others to fight for a free, open, and global internet.”

“Sino-Russian Narratives of Cooperation and What It Means for the Baltics,” Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), August 2020: The author, head of Riga Stradins University’s China Studies Center, writes:

• “From the Baltic perspective, a decent, neighborly Sino-Russian relationship on the operational level is a positive development that serves the stabilization of transit and trade flows across Eurasia. More convergence between the two major powers, especially in the security domain, however, would spell China’s support to the Russian official worldview, which has been increasingly unsympathetic towards Baltic statehood. This, in turn, would result in a growing demand for NATO presence in the region.”

Ukraine:

• No significant developments.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Can Russia-West Divide Save ‘Europe’s Last Dictator’ in Belarus?” Maxim Samorukov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 08.10.20: The author, a fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center and deputy editor of Carnegie.ru, writes:

• “Lukashenko’s erratic behavior and inconsistent pronouncements create the impression that his regime is on its last legs. Yet his apparent panic is likely to prove misleading. Lukashenko is prone to losing his nerve and overreacting to opposition challenges every time he has to hold an election. It doesn’t affect the fundamentals of his regime, which are still sound.”
• “The anti-Lukashenko movement is well-intended, but dithering and easy to suppress. A few show trials resulting in short prison terms will suffice to make the majority of protesters have second thoughts and return to their everyday life, which is basically European in all but political freedoms.”
• “Belarusian society has clearly outgrown its veteran populist leader. A country with a burgeoning tech sector and the highest number per capita of European Schengen area visas needs a more complex and responsive political system than Lukashenko can ever provide. But this does not guarantee imminent change.”
• “Outdated regimes can prove extremely resilient if favored by broader geopolitics. The quasi-fascist dictatorships of southern Europe already looked obsolete in the years immediately following World War II, but remained in place for another three decades until the threat of a communist takeover subsided. The same may prove true for Lukashenko, who, from his position atop a geopolitical fault line, will weather every storm as long as Russia and the West mistrust him less than they do each other.”

“Belarus President Lukashenko Wins Sixth Term by Landslide,” Isabelle Khurshudyan, The Washington Post, 08.10.20: The author, a foreign correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• “Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won a landslide reelection according to preliminary results announced Monday [Aug. 10] that have provoked protests and opposition accusations of vote-rigging. Police violently dispersed demonstrations overnight … and more clashes could follow as the opposition has vowed to continue protesting, refusing to accept the official election results, while Lukashenko promised a ‘proper response.’”
• “In Minsk, images and video posted to social media Sunday night [Aug. 9] showed heavily armored riot police using water cannons, stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators after a Central Election Committee official told state television that initial results showed Lukashenko claiming more than 80 percent of the vote. His main opposition rival, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, received about 10 percent … Final results are expected Friday [Aug. 14].”
• “In one video, a police prisoner van appeared to run into a demonstrator in Minsk. Multiple human rights groups said Monday that the person later died of head wounds and that dozens of others were hospitalized. Protests in Gomel and Vitebsk also turned violent, but in some smaller cities, rallies were peaceful, and authorities did not move to disperse them. The Belarusan Ministry of Internal Affairs said Monday that about 3,000 people were detained for participating in the protests … but it denied that there were any casualties.”
• “Lukashenko said Monday that the protests were orchestrated from abroad, accusing Britain, Poland and the Czech Republic … He also blamed foreign interference for the Internet shut-off. … Russian President Vladimir Putin was the second world leader to congratulate Lukashenko on his victory … China's Xi Jinging was the first. The European Union said in a statement that ‘election night was marred with disproportionate and unacceptable state violence against peaceful protesters.’”
• “In the run-up to Sunday's election, authorities detained Lukashenko's two main opponents; a third was barred from running and lives in exile. But Tikhanovskaya, the wife of jailed candidate Sergei Tikhanovsky, united the three strongest opposition camps to fight Lukashenko in a campaign fronted by three women.”

“Belarus Rocked by Police Violence After Election Protesters Take to Streets,” James Shotter, Max Seddon and Michael Peel, Financial Times, 08.10.20: The authors, correspondents for the news outlet, write:

• “Tikhanovskaya has rejected official election results that gave a landslide victory to strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko and triggered a brutal crackdown by police. … Ms. Tikhanovskaya claimed results from some polling stations that had released their counts to the public showed her with ‘70-80 percent’ of the vote, and insisted that protests would continue. ‘Just look at what’s happening at the polling stations,’ Ms. Tikhanovskaya told reporters on Monday [Aug. 10]. ‘The government is using force to stay in power.’”

“Mercenaries’ Arrests Deepen Minsk-Moscow Rift,” Artyom Shraibman, Carnegie Moscow Center, 08.04.20: The author, a journalist and political commentator, writes:

• “If the security agencies of the two countries trusted one another, then upon discovering the soldiers outside Minsk, it would have been logical to pick up the phone and find out who they were and why they were there. But the Belarusian authorities had a different reaction, and received in response not an apology for the breakdown in communications, but a salvo of reproofs, not to mention insults from Russia’s ruling United Russia party, which called Lukashenko a ‘parasite’ and ‘freeloader.’”
• “From now on, Minsk and Moscow can increasingly expect uncoordinated and provocative actions from each other. Their weariness and suspicion of each other will mount further. Consequently, it’s less and less likely that at a future critical moment of political tension in Belarus, the Kremlin will come to Lukashenko’s aid—especially if his opponents keep refusing to endorse the anti-Russian agenda that the president is increasingly claiming.”