Abstract
Since the 2020 contested election in Belarus, Ukraine-Belarus post-independence relations appear to be at an all-time low. For the first time, following Aliaksandr Lukashenka's violent crackdown on protests, the Ukrainian side did not recognize the legitimacy of Lukashenka's regime and limited contacts with it.
The Ryanair flight hijacking and the alleged contacts of the Belarusian regime with the so-called Luhansk "People's Republic" put the bilateral relations on the verge of a breakdown. Yet, although Ukraine joined Western sanctions against certain individuals in Minsk, economic considerations and geopolitical uncertainty continue to prevail and dictate a rather cautious approach to Belarus.
Furthermore, despite Lukashenka announcing in August 2021 that Ukraine constituted a threat to Belarus and that a "new front" of contestation had emerged on the Belarusian southern border, in his words, Ukraine remained a "brotherly nation". This ambiguity is very indicative of the Belarus-Ukraine relations in the post-independence period that we focus on in this chapter.