’Belarus – a significant chess piece on the chessboard of regional security

Belarus is often considered as ‘the last authoritarian state in Europe’ or the ‘last Soviet Republic’. Belarusian policies are not a popular research topic. Over the past years, the country has made headlines mostly as a regime violating human rights. Since the Russian aggression on Ukraine, Belarus has been getting renewed attention. Minsk was the scene of a series of talks that aim at stopping the ongoing war in Ukraine. Western media, scholars and society got a reminder that Eastern Europe was not a conflict-free zone. This article puts military security policy of Belarus into perspective by showing that Belarus ‘per se’ is not a threat for neighboring countries; Belarus dependency towards Russia is huge; thus, Minsk has a small capability to run its own independent security policy; military potential of Belarus is significant in the region, but gap in equipment and training between NATO and Belarus is really more; it is in the interest of Western countries to keep the Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus