Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Belarus Is the Latest Thorn in Putin's Side

Protests against President Alexander Lukashenko could lead to another foreign policy disaster.

March 21, 2017 at 5:11 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Ukraine all over again?
Photographer: Viktor Drachev/TASS via Getty Images

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Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko is caught in the crossfire of a much larger battle. He'd like closer ties with the European Union and weaker ones with Russia, but the drift appears to be drawing popular protests driven by growing dissatisfaction with his repressive policies and failed management of the economy.

QuickTake Vladimir Putin