Putin pledges $1.5bn loan and security assistance to Belarus

Russia to hold joint military exercises in boost to embattled president Alexander Lukashenko

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday Russia would give Belarus a $1.5bn loan and uphold its promises of security assistance, as embattled president Alexander Lukashenko sought Moscow’s support for his crackdown on protesters.

Mr Putin said that Russia would also hold joint military exercises with Belarus “practically every month” for the next year in addition to an existing promise to deploy Russian police forces, the clearest sign yet that Moscow is prepared to use force to prevent a revolution in its closest client state.

“Russia remains committed to all of our agreements,” Mr Putin said in remarks carried by state media as their meeting began. “We see Belarus as our closest ally, and of course, as I have already told you many times in our phone calls, we will deliver on all the obligations we have assumed.”

Mr Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, visited Mr Putin in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi on Monday to shore up Russia’s support for his regime after his disputed election victory last month sparked the largest protests in the country’s history.

The former collective farm manager is mounting a charm offensive aimed at Mr Putin.

“A friend in need is a friend indeed. I mean that sincerely,” Mr Lukashenko said. “I want to thank you not for fulfilling our treaty [obligations], that goes without saying, but because you personally and all the Russians who helped us after the elections acted so decently.”

Mr Lukashenko’s pleas to Moscow contrast with his rejection last year of Mr Putin’s entreaties for closer ties in favour of rapprochement with the west. Russia withdrew subsidies on oil exports that will cost Belarus $10bn in revenue up to 2024, while Mr Lukashenko repeatedly asserted during the campaign that “puppetmasters” from Moscow were working to overthrow him.

But after reports of widespread electoral falsifications and police torture of protesters led the US and EU to threaten sanctions against Belarus, Mr Lukashenko rapidly changed tack to warn Russia that allowing his downfall could inspire a similar movement against Mr Putin. “This is a lesson for all of our post-Soviet republics, not just for Belarus and Russia,” he said.

Mr Putin said last month that Russia would deploy an auxiliary police force to Belarus at Mr Lukashenko’s request if protests turn violent, galvanising Mr Lukashenko’s own security forces to crack down on protests with renewed vigour in the past week.

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Belarus’s opposition fears that Mr Lukashenko’s overtures to Mr Putin may come at the price of the country’s sovereignty under a long-stalled “union state” treaty that could cement its economic dependence on Russia.

Moscow has also refused to engage with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the 38-year-old presidential candidate who declared herself the “national leader” after the election.

Ahead of the meeting, Ms Tikhanovskaya, who fled to Lithuania under pressure from Belarusian security forces, called Mr Lukashenko an “illegitimate [ . . . ] usurper” and said a future government would reassess any agreements he signed with Mr Putin in Sochi.

Mr Putin told Mr Lukashenko that Russia wanted “Belarusians to calmly sort out this situation themselves without any hints or pressure from outside” in a thinly veiled swipe at European support for Ms Tikhanovskaya.

He added that Russia backed Mr Lukashenko’s announcement of a constitutional review leading to a referendum and early presidential election, which he said would help Belarus “reach new heights in developing the political system”.

Though Mr Lukashenko recently said he would only leave office “when you kill me”, Moscow is pushing him to make good on the promise of a review in the hope of finding an eventual successor.

Artyom Shraibman, founder of Minsk-based political consultancy Sense Analytics, said that Russia would continue to reluctantly back Mr Lukashenko in the absence of a palatable alternative.

“The authorities are insistently cutting the opposition off at the head,” he said. “As soon as any kind of leadership structures emerge, they deport them or jail them at once. And that makes things more difficult for Russia, because if you’re going to refocus your policy, you need to know: to whom?”