Ukraine’s limited dialogue with Belarusian democratic forces

Leader of democratic Belarus and the United Transnational Cabinet, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has sought to build dialogue with Kyiv since February 2022. Yet, the Ukrainian leadership has been reluctant. Photo: DarSzach /Shutterstock

By the end of the year, Ukraine was conducting dialogue on multiple fronts with the people of Belarus, both continuing the conversation with Minsk while building its relationships with the Kalinoŭski Regiment (the group of Belarusians fighting on the side of Ukraine) and the United Transitional Cabinet (led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya). How does Ukraine maintain such a tricky diplomatic balance, especially when Belarus remains in the hands of Lukashenka, perhaps the most eccentric and mercurial leader on the European continent?

Forging relations anew

It has been well documented that the Ukrainian leadership has been reluctant to conduct any active dialogue with Tsikhanouskaya’s entourage. Despite these hurdles, Kyiv’s relations with the Belarusian opposition did expand at some level after Lukashenka’s rigged elections of 2020. In 2021, at the invitation of the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, Tsikhanouskaya took part in an online meeting of the Lublin Triangle format (a joint platform of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania). At the beginning of September 2022, Oleksiy Arestovych, then advisor to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met with Tsikhanouskaya. In fact, this can be considered the first direct contact between the Ukrainian president’s entourage and the leader of the Belarusian democratic forces. In October 2022 representatives of the Belarusian Transitional Cabinet met with members of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament), including Bohdan Yaremenko from the ruling Servant of the People party. This meeting was also seen as a breakthrough moment and the start of dialogue between Ukraine at the state level and the United Transitional Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the dialogue format between Ukraine and the Kalinoŭski Regiment as political representatives of Belarusian society was proposed in October 2022 by Yaremenko. Between October and December 2022, a number of meetings involving the regiment’s representatives were held with Ukrainian and Lithuanian MPs, as well as Ukrainian local authorities, including Vitaly Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv. In this way, the topic of Belarus in Ukrainian political life was “unfrozen” after almost a year of “freezing”, which occurred after Lukashenka recognized Crimea as Russian and Belarus’s subsequent participation in the Russian aggression against Ukraine. In the first month after the beginning of the aggression, Ukrainian politicians appealed directly to the Belarusian people with calls not to allow the Belarusian army to go to war, but there were no considerations or attempts to undertake any political dialogue from November 2021 to October 2022. In 2023, the intensity of dialogue  decreased slightly compared to the end of 2022, but in one form or another contacts are still developing.

Dialogue with the Minsk authorities, on the other hand, is still taking place formally via diplomatic relations, although the diplomatic rank of these relations in 2023 has significantly decreased. In June 2023 Zelenskyy dismissed Ihor Kyzym, the Ukrainian ambassador to Belarus, and in October Lukashenka sacked Igor Sokol, the Belarusian ambassador in Kyiv. Formally, both countries are currently represented at the level of chargé d’affaires. The chargé d’affaires of Ukraine on the website of the embassy in Minsk mentions Olga Timush, but her biography and photo are not on the website. However, on the website of the Belarusian embassy in Kyiv, Igor Sokol is still indicated as the ambassador.

In mid-June last year, a group of deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced a draft resolution recognizing Belarus as an aggressor state and calling for the severance of diplomatic relations. The justification for the bill demands that the Ukrainian parliament recognize Belarus as an aggressor state and calls on the governments of other countries and international organizations to do the same. In addition, the resolution includes a call to “immediately resolve the issue of breaking diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus”. However, this bill is still being reviewed by committees of the Verkhovna Rada.

Keeping the channel open

The Ukrainian government still adheres to the principle that as long as the Belarusian military does not participate in the Russian war against Ukraine, then Kyiv will maintain diplomatic relations with Minsk. The reason for Kyiv’s political line is generally understandable – even when reduced to a minimum, diplomatic relations do remain a channel through which it is possible to maintain contact (and this means the possibility of influence) with the Lukashenka regime. Ukraine wants to leave the Belarusian dictator the opportunity to manoeuvre even in the conditions of a full-scale war. Another reason for maintaining diplomatic relations is the ability to defend the rights of Ukrainian citizens on the territory of Belarus, which was especially mentioned by Kyzym when he was still ambassador in Minsk. In the current conditions, it is difficult to say how effectively Ukraine uses this opportunity, but formally it will remain as long as diplomatic relations are open.

On the one hand, any dialogue between the representatives of the Ukrainian authorities and the United Transitional Cabinet (and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya) has not intensified. But on the other, it has slowly become, in a sense, a “working routine” and part of normality in the political life of both countries. This in itself is progress, considering that almost half a year after the events of August 2020, Ukraine had no contacts with Tsikhanouskaya’s circle at all – until the aforementioned online meeting of the Lublin Triangle, where Tsikhanouskaya was an invited guest. Kyiv has maintained contact in various ways ever since. After the Ukrainian political elite “unfroze” the Belarusian issue last autumn, the situation changed dramatically. Ukraine is now becoming a place for meetings and cooperation between various representatives of the democratic forces of Belarus. For example, on February 8th last year, a roundtable was held in Kyiv titled “Belarusian Platform: public conversation about the future”. The event was attended by, among others: Ukrainian and Belarusian researchers of bilateral relations, representatives of the Kalinoŭski Regiment, the transitional cabinet, and the Ukrainian ministry of culture and information policy.

In mid-May 2023 Zelenskyy met Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya for the first time. Although it was widely promoted on social networks by Tsikhanouskaya’s circle and Belarusian free media, in fact it was almost a forced formality. During the presentation of the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, Zelenskyy greeted other invited politicians, including Tsikhanouskaya. The formal handshake is a positive symbolic gesture after so many years of obscurity, but it does not indicate any greater interest in developing further dialogue at the highest level.

A forum for new projects

On September 1st 2022, Mykhailo Podolyak, head adviser to Zelenskyy, gave an hour-long interview to Anatoly Lebedko, Tsikhanouskaya’s adviser on inter-parliamentary cooperation and constitutional reform. During the interview, Podolyak discussed the prospects for the development of Belarusian-Ukrainian relations, the situation in Belarus and the legal problems of Belarusians in Ukraine. At the end of November, the “Road to Freedom” conference was held in Kyiv, initiated by the Kastus Kalinoŭski Foundation, and a keynote speech was delivered online by Tsikhanouskaya. Representatives of the United Transitional Cabinet also participated in the conference.

The intensity of the political dialogue between representatives of the Ukrainian authorities and the Kalinoŭski Regiment as a political unit decreased significantly in 2023 compared to autumn 2022, when meetings between the representatives of the regiment and Ukrainian politicians of various levels were held almost every week. Moreover, not all projects agreed upon during this period were implemented. For example, in October 2022, during a meeting involving regiment representatives and the parliamentary group “For a Free Belarus”, agreements were reached to initiate a draft resolution in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to recognize Belarus as an occupied state. The draft was introduced, but since then (over a year now), no progress has been made on the matter.

Generally, in 2023 the regiment was focused more on the military part of its activities. The political part in this respect receded into the background. The main political project of the year, implemented by the regiment, was the aforementioned “Road to Freedom” conference. This event became a forum which united over 100 representatives of various circles of Belarusian civil society. After the conference, a joint declaration and an appeal to the free nations of the world were signed. On the Ukrainian side, the forum was attended by, among others, Yaremenko, as one of the initiators of the regiment’s political activity. Most importantly, Ukraine acted here as a forum where Belarusian democratic forces and representatives of Belarusian civil society were able to meet, talk to each other, propose new projects and develop a strategy of action. Moreover, a separate panel of the conference was devoted to the role of Ukraine in the future democratization of Belarus. In their theses, the representatives of the regiment emphasized that Kyiv should become the priority strategic partner of the national liberation movement.

Prospects for 2024

So what will happen next? The intensive onset of dialogue between the Ukrainian authorities and the Belarusian democratic forces in autumn 2022 did not continue so strongly in 2023. This can be partly explained by the difficult situation on the battlefield in the Russian war against Ukraine, which is naturally the priority for the authorities in Kyiv.

Ukraine has maintained its diplomatic relations with the government in Minsk. This is facilitated by, among others, the fact that the Belarusian army was not directly involved in the war, and shelling from the territory of Belarus has not taken place for over a year. The deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus and the establishment of the Wagner Group fighter base in Belarus have not changed Kyiv’s position.

Despite Tsikhanouskaya’s formal meeting with Zelenskyy in Aachen, top-level Ukrainian authorities have not yet sought to develop dialogue at the highest level, leaving contacts with Tsikhanouskaya, her office and the United Transitional Cabinet at the level of advisors and parliamentarians. Tsikhanouskaya did not come to Kyiv in November for the “Path to Freedom” conference, which she explained was due to the lack of an invitation from the Ukrainian government. Nevertheless, Ukraine has become a venue for organizing dialogue among the Belarusian democratic forces at least twice in 2023 (in February with the roundtable “Belarusian Platform: public conversation about the future”, and in November with the “Path to Freedom” conference). It seems that this role on the part of Ukraine will continue to develop.

At the level of the Ukrainian parliament, many laws and resolutions regarding Belarus remain in draft form, some of them even for over a year. In this regard, the failure to implement the projects agreed with representatives of the Belarusian democratic forces hinders further concrete dialogue.

Currently, the Ukrainian ruling team believes that the only Belarusian democratic organization with real power is the Kalinoŭski Regiment, thus dialogue should primarily be conducted with them. What is more, if Belarusian civil society becomes dispersed and divided, the regiment may truly remain the only force with which the Ukrainian authorities can actually conduct dialogue and organize joint projects. Yet, if the international recognition of the United Transitional Cabinet and the Coordination Council is added to the real strength of the Kalinoŭski Regiment, the political weight of Belarusian civil society in dialogue with Kyiv may increase significantly. Thus, it appears that dialogue between the Ukrainian authorities and representatives of Belarusian civil society this year will largely depend, first and foremost, on the further development of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and secondly, on the ability of the Belarusian democratic forces to remain united.

Oleksandr Shevchenko is a political scientist and works with the Centre for East European Studies of Warsaw University. He is a member of the “BELARUS-UKRAINE-REGION” Analytical Group, an analyst for the Trójmorze portal, and deputy editor-in-chief of the PSZ.pl portal. 

belarus, Belarusian-Ukrainian relations, civil society, Ukraine