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Punished for being abused: Belarusian controversy

Gradually but decisively, the European Union is folding Belarus into the same category as Russia. The toughest measures are coming from states that share a border with Belarus. How did a society once seen as a victim of Europe’s most brutal dictatorship come to be regarded as complicit in its crimes?

February 23, 2026 - Nasta Zakharevich - Articles and CommentaryIssue 1-2 2026Magazine

A protest sign in Vilnius last year calls for release of Belarusian political prisoners. Many who fled the Lukashenka regime settled in Lithuania. Yet at the same time, former political prisoners have been denied international protection in the country on the grounds that they have already served their sentences and therefore face no further threat. Photo: Michele Ursi / Shutterstock

Hundreds of thousands of people have left Belarus since the 2020 presidential election. Inside the country, more than 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, and the wave of repression shows no sign of slowing. At the same time, western policy towards Belarusians has changed significantly. Unconditional support is gradually being replaced by new restrictions on Belarusian citizens, while Belarus itself is increasingly seen as a black hole, a lost land whose inhabitants are deemed to have brought their fate upon themselves. How is the attitude towards Belarusians in the European Union changing, and how are Belarus’s democratic forces responding?

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