Carnegie Moscow Center
Following last month's presidential election and subsequent government crackdown on opposition activists, Belarus is at a strategic crossroads, but a swift response by Minsk could salvage the country's course toward reform and greater integration.
The presidential elections in Belarus were marred by serious irregularities in the voting process, which led to violence on the streets of Minsk. The key question at this point is why, despite moderate improvements over previous elections, things went wrong.
Alexander Lukashenko may have won a fourth term as president of Belarus, but he now faces both an opposition capable of mass mobilization and international partners in Europe and Russia that are growing tired of paying to maintain his status quo.
A Euro-Atlantic security community would be built on a transformed strategic relationship between the United States, NATO, and Russia, and reconciliation between Moscow and Central and Eastern Europe.
Since 2008, Russo-Polish relations have seen a positive transformation that has the potential to make this relationship one of the key pillars of stability and security in Europe.
The recent summit between France, Germany, and Russia led to no major developments, but it laid the path toward further improving Russia’s relations with its neighbors and toward a serious discussion about creating a security community spanning North America, Europe, and Russia.
The Ukrainian Constitutional Court’s decision to overturn the political reform of 2004 acts as a relative guarantee that, should the opposition win the majority in future parliamentary elections, it will not be able to threaten the president’s agenda.
The return of Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected president of Ukraine in February, has sparked fears among some that the momentum of Ukraine’s domestic political and economic reforms would be lost.
The real challenge facing Kyiv today is to deliver on the promise of effective government in the short term, without sacrificing Ukraine’s long-term strategic interests.
Russia, Europe, and the United States are critical players in Moldova’s development and have an opportunity to help transform Moldova into a real post-Soviet success story and prove that a prosperous democracy can exist in the space between East and West.