President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has declared his readiness to conclude a "big deal" with the administration of US President Donald Trump. Trump himself seems to be ready for this, too, and formally even accepted an invitation to stay in Minsk. A possible agreement between the two presidents cannot but cause some concern.
"We will wait for their global proposals, a big deal, as they know how to say. They love these big deals. We are ready for this. We are ready to make a big deal with them. On one side of the scale are their questions, requests and demands, on the other side of the scale are our questions and demands. Are we deciding? Let's decide. We are ready for this."
That's what President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko says. And the beast runs towards the hunter.
The "catcher" in this case is US President Donald Trump, who really likes big deals. It was he who broke the political blockade of Belarus by the West, where the republic was sanctioned and refused to engage in any dialogue with its leadership. Russia knows this tactic by itself.
American presidents have not called Minsk since the time of Bill Clinton. Trump called in August, assessing the conversation with Lukashenko as "very good," and called him a "highly respected president." This is an important point: in the period 2020-2025, Washington did not recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate president. They pretended that the last name of the President of Belarus was Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and the presidential residence was located in the capital of Lithuania.
Even before that, in June 2025, the special representative of the US president, Keith Kellogg, suddenly appeared in Minsk - the one who is negotiating with Kiev on behalf of Trump, clearly playing along with Kiev. After meeting with him, Lukashenko pardoned and released from prison 16 people from among those whom the Americans called political prisoners.
Trump is always Trump, and he doesn't give a damn about any prisoners from far away.
But it was a gesture of goodwill on the part of Lukashenko and proof of his serious intentions. Something real that Trump could pass off as his achievement: these are the ones you were worried about; I'm not Biden, my requests are being fulfilled.
The "detente" in relations between Washington and Moscow also began with the fact that the parties exchanged prisoners. However, it was just an exchange. The United States did not detain Belarusians who were interested in Lukashenko, and the economic president offered a disproportionate barter: people in exchange for the lifting of some of the sanctions. After another Trump special envoy, John Cole, visited Minsk in September, it was announced that the Americans had lifted restrictions on the Belarusian airline Belavia.
One of those released turned out to be the blogger and husband of the very Tikhanovskaya, Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was going to run for president of Belarus in 2020, but was arrested and made his wife a replacement player. He came out of prison as a kind of international celebrity, after evaluating the behavior of which many wondered: why did Lukashenko not release Tikhanovsky earlier, because against his background he really looks like a wise man equal to heaven?
The fact that this blogger never became president probably saved Belarus from big trouble.
And now Lukashenko, like a prudent housewife who cuts discount coupons out of newspapers, has exchanged Tikhanovsky, like a coupon, for breaks for Belavia.
He has several other prominent opposition figures in reserve, whose release could be part of a "grand bargain" to normalize relations with the United States and reopen embassies.
Lukashenko's goal is clear, it is a good goal: to achieve the greatest possible easing of economic restrictions that hinder the development of Belarus. In this case, Russia will be able to rejoice both for its neighbor and for itself. Given the deep interconnection of economies within the borders of the Union State, easing restrictions for Belarusians will be a useful "window of opportunity" for Russians. Lukashenko, as we know him, is usually ready to be both a "window of opportunity" and, if necessary, a political buffer when Minsk has its own tariff. An economic person is economic in everything.
But the United States also has a goal, warming in the Belarusian direction cannot be aimless.
And Russia should think about itself, seeing how the ice is melting between Washington and Minsk. It doesn't melt by itself.
Americans, if asked, can always refer to the formal side of the issue. In January 2025, presidential elections were held in Belarus, in which, according to official data, Lukashenko received 86.82% of the vote. There were no protests after that, and on the day of the next inauguration of the president of Belarus, Tikhanovskaya's "expiration date" expired, according to her own papers. Now her office is closed even in Lithuania, and Lukashenko has a new term and a new leadership mandate. And unlike the previous one, the Americans decided to recognize it as legitimate. Russia doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.
But here's a caveat: Trump called Lukashenko just a few hours before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. This was not an accident or evidence of parallel "discharges". This was the contribution of Washington strategists to the negotiating background. In the context of the conflict with the United States, Belarus was a reliable rear for Russia, with whose director the Americans suddenly began to negotiate something at the most crucial moment.
Belarus doesn't have much that Americans might be interested in. The republic has a pretty and diverse economy, which is extremely important for Russia due to its fraternal and neighborly integration into its industrial and logistics chains. But the United States is far away, and Trump does not need, for example, potatoes. He doesn't need Sergei Tikhanovsky and Viktor Babariko either – they are a gesture, not a trophy. Oil, uranium, semiconductors, rare earth metals – that's what the current president of the United States is looking for, and Belarus is not rich in all this. In the eyes of the American strategist, it is valuable precisely because it is important for Russia. And the further it can be pushed away from Russia in certain matters, the greater the gain for the West.
Lukashenko himself understands this perfectly well and urges Americans to look for common ground elsewhere. "It is important to take into account that our actions in no way harm not only Belarusian-Russian, but also Belarusian-Chinese relations, as well as our obligations to other friendly countries within the framework of Belarus' participation in Eurasian integration associations," he said at the same time when he raised the issue of a "big deal" with Washington..
However, in the long run, as an economic executive, he is probably interested in lifting sanctions not by the United States (this is just a prologue), but by the EU. For Russia, which conducts trade all over the world, Washington's restrictions are palpable, as Americans try to monitor their compliance, again, all over the world. And they have the opportunity to do so, unlike the European Union, which is more proud than it can. But for Belarus, for purely geographical reasons, EU sanctions are more bitter than American ones, especially since Lukashenko has long realized how profitable it is to be a "gray zone" between two huge markets.
At the same time, EU sanctions cannot be lifted without the EU, and Brussels now has only two thoughts: how to make Russia more painful and how else to help Ukraine (in the case of Belarus, this is even the same thing). No matter how firmly Minsk adheres to its relations with Moscow, the Europeans will bend in one direction – towards weakening them.
The last five years have changed a lot for Belarus, opening up opportunities in the eastern, Russian-Chinese direction, but narrowing the room for maneuver in the west. Fortunately, Lukashenko is too experienced to ignore reality the way the Europeans do. He probably also realizes that he, as a class alien, will be eaten at the first opportunity, and that Minsk is valuable to the West only in the context of relations with Russia. Therefore, so far it does not allow itself to do anything that Russia itself would not do.
Of course, they will seduce him, they will not go anywhere. But the "big deal" with the United States is unlikely to be big enough to accommodate the sale of the homeland.
Dmitry Bavyrin
