Lukashenka started first

Looking at Armenia’s recent actions and statements, one might get the impression that Yerevan has done everything possible to anger Alyaksandr Lukashenka: the Armenian parliament speaker’s statement that their country will not be governed like a Russian governorate, unlike Belarus; the invitation to Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Yerevan summit alongside European leaders; and the invitation to Belarusian democratic leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

However, according to Belsat studio guest Vital Tsyhankou, the conflict between Yerevan and Minsk began much earlier: with Lukashenka’s open support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, which felt like betrayal to Armenia as an CSTO ally.

Tsyhankou emphasized that the first step toward deteriorating relations was taken by Alyaksandr Lukashenka himself. In 2023 — a decisive year for Armenia, when Azerbaijan established control over Nagorno-Karabakh — official Minsk not only failed to support its formal ally within integration structures but sided with Baku instead.

“[Lukashenka] did nothing to support Armenia, which is supposedly part of the same pro-Russian defense and integration structures and is formally an ally of Belarus and Russia… But Lukashenka supported Azerbaijan instead. That’s where it all started. Pashinyan then said he would not visit Belarus as long as Lukashenka remains,” Tsyhankou noted.

He observed that after this, a mutual exchange of rhetorical blows began, with Lukashenka in a weaker position, able only to respond through official Foreign Ministry statements or personal reproaches at CIS summits.

“An exchange of blows followed. We see that Armenia now has more capacity for its blows, since Lukashenka, apart from the Foreign Ministry’s barking back, can’t actually respond with anything,” the political commentator said.

“Did Lukashenka’s telegrams help you?”

At the same time, Tsyhankou noted that the exchange of mutual attacks began only recently, but one should recall that in 2020, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was among the first to congratulate Lukashenka on his so-called election victory.

“That is, Armenia’s geopolitical bet was on Belarus as an ally of Russia, and he [Pashinyan] could not afford any liberties toward Lukashenka, even though, as a democratically elected leader, he certainly understood that Lukashenka had stolen the election. And now, of course, paraphrasing a Ukrainian classic, one might ask: ‘Well, did your telegrams to Lukashenka help you?'”

The issues with the Kremlin come first

According to Tsyhankou, Armenia’s main problem remains its relations with Russia, not with Belarus.

The conflict with Lukashenka is merely a reflection of a deeper process — Armenia’s distancing from Russia. However, the expert notes, a complete break is not possible in the near future. A challenging geopolitical position (neighbors include Turkey and Azerbaijan) and the presence of Russian military bases on its territory force Yerevan to act cautiously, even as it actively seeks support from the West.

“Belarus is simply not the main issue here. The main issue is Yerevan’s relations with Moscow… The fact that Armenia remains in these structures after all these years is primarily because of this specific geopolitical situation — there’s no one else to rely on in the neighborhood: Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia… So Armenia, as long as Putin remains, will distance itself from Russia, but for now, it is not daring to even raise the issue of the Russian bases,” Tsyhankou observed.

Dictator solidarity as an obstacle

Asked whether other Moscow allies could follow Armenia’s path of distancing from the Kremlin and eventually become safe havens for Belarusian democratic forces, Tsyhankou expressed skepticism.

Beyond the ideological commonality of authoritarian regimes, a key factor remains economics: millions of labor migrants from these countries work in Russia, and their potential deportation would cause economic collapse back home.

“Apart from ties with Moscow, there is also a certain ideological dictator solidarity. Most of these countries are still undemocratic… Uzbekistan and Tajikistan send hundreds of thousands or even millions of their people to work in Russia. They are dependent in this sense and cannot afford to treat Russia negatively. If all their guest workers were sent back, it would be a huge blow to their economies, as a significant part of Tajikistan, for example, lives on that money,” Tsyhankou noted.

The political observer observed that the CIS is indeed slowly weakening and falling apart, but its collapse — as predicted after 2022, when Russia’s war against Ukraine began — has not yet happened.

It is worth recalling that on May 2, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan stated that his country would not be “run like Belarus.” In response, on May 5, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry summoned Armenia’s chargé d’affaires, Artur Sargsyan, to whom a “decisive protest” was delivered, along with a note regarding “recent unfriendly actions by the Armenian side.”

Against this backdrop, on May 4-5, Yerevan hosted the European Political Community Summit and the first Armenia-EU Summit. Guests at the summit included the head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya; the presidents of Moldova, France, and Ukraine; the prime ministers of the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and Poland; and the heads of the European Commission, the European Council, and NATO.

Valer Ruselik, Vital Babin, Raman Shavel / jangra belsat.eu