Alexander Lukashenko

With the help of Poland’s right-wing PIS government, the Belarusian leader Lukashenko engineered a humanitarian crisis on Europe’s doorstep. In doing so, he is successfully eroding the European Union’s remaining claim to moral authority.

Even under enormous pressure from Moscow, Belarus saw the crisis in Ukraine as a way to increase its geopolitical importance, improve its negotiating power in relations with Russia and to change its strained relations with the EU.