The Unique History of Belarus from 1991 to the Present Day - Mikalaj Packajeu

In his talk Mikalaj Packajeu describes how a newly independent Belarus emerged from the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 and compares the post-Soviet development of Belarus with that of the Russian Federation and of Russia’s other near neighbours (i.e. Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic states). He describes how in the early years after independence Belarus’s government failed to grapple with much-needed reforms and how the first (and, so far, last) free elections in Belarusian history resulted in the election of Alexander Lukashenko as the president of Belarus in 1994. Mikalaj Packajeu then describes how over the next three decades President Lukashenko established and consolidated a highly autocratic system of rule with an increasingly severe clampdown on free speech, opposition parties and human rights. He focusses in particular on the ‘watershed’ Presidential elections of 2020 and the large scale of repression since then. He also discussed the complex question of the Lukashenko government’s complicity in Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as the position of the Belarusian diaspora in the West and Belarusian volunteer units on Ukraine’s side.

Mikalaj Packajeu is an international political risk analyst, legal researcher and specialist linguist. He holds a Master’s degree in Politics and Sociology from Cambridge University, and is chair of the Association of Belarusians in Great Britain, which is a UK diaspora organisation founded in 1946.