Belarus Opposition Waits for Its Solidarity Moment

Nearly six years ago, Belarusians poured onto the streets after Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president who has ruled the country since 1994, claimed another implausible election victory. Factory workers walked out, women formed human chains and as many as 200,000 people filled central Minsk in the largest demonstration in Belarusian history. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The uprising changed Belarusian society, though it didn’t change the state. Lukashenko remained in power, supported by the Kremlin and protected by security forces prepared to imprison thousands of their own citizens. Yet the democratic movement survived, largely in exile and is preparing for the next moment when the regime becomes vulnerable. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled opposition leader who challenged Lukashenko in 2020 after her husband was imprisoned, compares this period to the years when Poland’s Solidarity movement operated underground. “Despite times of desperation, there were people who preserved hope, courage and strength,” she told TVP World this week. “When the moment came, they didn’t lose that momentum. Our task now is the same.” The comparison captures the opposition’s determination, but it also reveals how much Belarus is still missing. Solidarity prevailed because it sank its roots inside Poland; it had a divided regime to deal with and a Kremlin prepared to stand aside. None of those conditions exists in Belarus today. Other Topics of Interest Drones Swarm German Patriot Repair Base Suspicious drone flights were reported over a highly secure German military base in Mechernich, the only facility in Europe where Patriot air defense systems are repaired, heightening concerns of Russian hybrid warfare following a recent explosive drone i Belarus reached Poland’s 1980 Tsikhanouskaya’s analogy works best when Belarus in 2020 is placed alongside Poland in 1980, the year mass strikes created Solidarity as a national movement. Poland in 1989 had reached a later stage. Solidarity had survived nearly a decade underground; the communist regime had divided, and negotiations were opening the way to partially free elections. Belarus has experienced the first of those moments, but it is still far away from the second. Belarus’s Solidarity moment followed the 2020 election, in which Lukashenko lost at the ballot box but “officially” won with more than 80% of the vote amid widespread and credible allegations of fraud, sparking a national democratic uprising. Workers organized strikes at some of Belarus’s most important state enterprises, including truck manufacturer BelAZ, fertilizer producer Grodno Azot and the Minsk Tractor Works. For a moment, the opposition appeared capable of toppling Lukashenko’s system. Something similar happened in Poland in August 1980, when strikes at the Gdańsk shipyard spread across the country and created Solidarity, the independent trade union that became the principal movement against communist rule. Within a year, it had almost 10 million members, making it one of the largest social movements in European history. The critical difference is that Solidarity secured roughly 16 months of legal existence before Poland’s communist government imposed martial law in December 1981. It used that time to create workplace committees, regional organizations, independent publications and an elected national leadership. Those structures endured underground and, crucially, remained rooted inside Poland. Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown denied the Belarusian movement that breathing space. Tsikhanouskaya was forced into exile within days. Strike leaders were arrested or dismissed, and independent organizations were labelled extremist. In 2022, the authorities dissolved every independent trade union. The moment the regime split What is particularly fascinating about Poland’s transition is that Solidarity entered 1989 weaker than it had been in 1981. Its underground networks remained, although years of arrests, surveillance by the Communist authorities and exhaustion had taken their toll. The decisive development came inside the communist regime, where economic collapse produced a political split. By 1988, renewed strikes, inflation above 60% and dependence on Western credit had convinced a pragmatic faction around communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski that the state could no longer stabilize the economy without Solidarity’s cooperation. Party hardliners still regarded legalizing the movement as a threat to communist rule, creating a struggle within the regime over how it could survive. Hardliners resisted. At a stormy Communist Party meeting in January 1989, Jaruzelski and several senior allies threatened to resign unless the leadership authorized negotiations. The resulting Round Table agreement legalized Solidarity and created partially free elections. And the rest is history. No such split is visible in Belarus because the regime is not yet staring into an economic abyss. Growth slowed to 1.3% in 2025, while sanctions and labor shortages are tightening the pressure. Russian markets, energy and financial support are still helping to keep factories open, wages paid and officials loyal. The men who run the security services, bureaucracy, and state industries therefore have little immediate reason to abandon Lukashenko, even as they worry about his age, Moscow’s growing grip and the coming succession. A democratic state waiting abroad The Belarusian opposition has still achieved something substantial. It has built the architecture of a democratic state outside the country. Tsikhanouskaya’s Office provides political leadership and international representation. The United Transitional Cabinet, established in exile in 2022, operates as a proto-government with portfolios covering foreign affairs, security, economic policy and the transfer of power. The Coordination Council serves as a representative body resembling a proto-parliament. Human rights organizations, independent media and groups supporting prisoners preserve political expertise and connections between Belarusians scattered across Europe. The movement now has people and plans ready for the day after Lukashenko. The problem is geography. Almost all of its machinery operates from abroad, far from the factories, streets and institutions where any transfer of power would begin. Its leaders have almost no safe way to organize workers, protect activists or force concessions inside Belarus. Released leaders return to a divided movement The prisoner releases have added another layer of uncertainty. Negotiations with the United States have helped secure the release of hundreds of detainees, including Maria Kalesnikava, one of the most recognizable leaders of the 2020 protests; Viktar Babaryka, the former banker prevented from standing against Lukashenko; and Ales Bialiatski, the founder of the Viasna human rights organization and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. A separate multi-country prisoner exchange in April, negotiated with US support, also freed Andrzej Poczobut, the Polish-Belarusian journalist and Polish-minority activist who had spent more than five years in prison. Yet Viasna still recognized 879 political prisoners as of August 7. The releases have also exposed divisions within the opposition. Babaryka’s supporters boycotted this year’s Coordination Council election, while Kalesnikava and Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Sviatlana’s husband and a prominent opposition activist, have questioned parts of the existing strategy. Just 2,113 people dared to vote, less than a third of the 2024 total. Lukashenko’s security apparatus had branded candidates extremist and targeted their families, making participation dangerous even from exile. The collapse in turnout also highlighted the deeper problem that, six years after the uprising, the opposition is still arguing over who has the authority to speak for the voters of 2020. Waiting for Moscow to stand aside The final piece fell into place for Poland in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s reformist last leader, made clear that the Kremlin would no longer send tanks to rescue communist governments across Eastern Europe. That reduced the threat hanging over Poland and gave Solidarity the opening it had spent nearly a decade preparing to seize. Russian President Vladimir Putin performs the opposite role in Belarus. Russian support helped Lukashenko survive in 2020. Belarus now depends heavily on the Russian market, hosts Russian military infrastructure and supports Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Lukashenko is now testing how much he can extract from Washington. He has traded prisoner releases for limited sanctions relief, gaining diplomatic attention and a little more room to breathe. But Moscow still dominates the space around him: Belarus depends on Russian markets and military protection. Ukraine’s approach has also shifted. President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously avoided directly embracing Tsikhanouskaya because Kyiv wanted to discourage Lukashenko from sending Belarusian troops into the war. In May, Zelenskyy personally invited her to Kyiv. Ukraine now sees Belarus’s future political direction as part of its own long-term security. Belarus’s next opening could come suddenly when Lukashenko leaves the scene, his lieutenants fight over the succession, or a defeat or major setback in Ukraine leaves the Kremlin too weak to impose its preferred replacement. That would give the democratic movement its first genuine chance to turn six years of preparation into power inside the country. Tsikhanouskaya is right about preserving courage through years of fear and exhaustion. Solidarity survived long enough to exploit a crack in the Polish regime just as Moscow stepped back. Belarus found its own Solidarity moment in 2020. Its democratic forces are keeping that moment alive while they wait for the regime split and Russian retreat that could let them finish what they started. See the original here.