Belarus at a Crossroads: Managing the Regime’s Return from Isolation

On 16 October, Sebastian Schäffer, Director of the IDM, took part in the panel discussion “Belarus at a Crossroads: Managing the Regime’s Return from Isolation”, moderated by Viktoryia Andrukovich and featuring Artyom Shraibman and Balazs Jarabik at Dialogbüro Vienna.

After years of political isolation, repression, and sanctions, the Lukashenka regime is showing cautious signs of re-engagement with the international community. In September, the United States concluded an agreement with Belarus, lifting certain sanctions in exchange for the release of political prisoners. The speakers examined both the opportunities and the dilemmas of Belarus’s tentative reintegration into the international arena.

For more than a decade, relations between Belarus and the West have oscillated between sanctions and cautious engagement. These measures imposed by the EU and the US, were intensified following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Belarus supported Russia. Schäffer pointed out that the growing perception of Europe’s vulnerability to Russian drones and hybrid threats has become a major concern – and warned that this could push parts of the European electorate toward populist parties offering simplistic promises of security.

As a result, some speakers remain pragmatic, noting that this new phase of openness remains limited within an authoritarian regime still aligned with Moscow. Although the EUs official stance remains unchanged – linking normalization to systemic political reform – some actors appear quietly supportive of U.S. -led efforts to negotiate prisoner releases as a pragmatic step forward, without lifting the EU sanctions.

The panel concluded that progress remains possible, particularly regarding human rights and democratic values, and that potential support from Belarus toward Ukraine could encourage greater openness from EU countries in future relations.