The Lukashenka regime is trying to manoeuvre between Trump’s transactionalism, for whom the deal itself can matter more than its substance, and the Kremlin’s ressentiment, which craves Western status and sees concessions as weakness and an invitation to escalate. Through contacts with Washington, Minsk hopes to ease Western pressure and demonstrate its autonomy. However, Moscow largely determines the limits of this autonomy: the more the Kremlin leans toward confrontation with the West, the less room there is for the Belarusian game.
Before turning to the topic of Belarus, it’s worth mentioning the calculations of the US and Russia.
Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine quickly and to walk away from negotiations if they did not yield results, cut aid to Kyiv, and offer Moscow concessions. However, Russia continues to fight, while Washington seeks an agreement. This persistence suggests that American objectives go beyond merely stopping the war.
Washington hopes to win Russia over to its side or at least secure its neutrality in the confrontation with China. Two former chiefs of staff of the US National Security Council under Trump stated this openly. Trump pursued a similar policy during his first term, combining attempts to warm relations with Moscow with a tough line on Beijing.
Moscow is keen to feed these expectations. According to two sources close to the Ukraine talks, Russia’s special representative, Kirill Dmitriev, has privately told American negotiators that Russia finds it difficult to trust China and prefers its pre-war cooperation with the US.
But the scope for such a pivot is limited: Russia has no one to replace China. Bilateral trade grew from $147 billion in 2021 to $228 billion in 2025 — compared with $4.4 billion between Russia and the US. Beijing’s industrial, financial, and technological support is critical to Russia’s economy and military machine, making Russia a junior partner to China with limited alternatives.
Although the Kremlin publicly calls this relationship an equal partnership, it considers its dependence on Beijing acceptable as long as it lets it maintain domestic order and confront the West. This logic is illustrated by Putin’s words about the Mongol-Tatar yoke: the Horde acted brutally, but, unlike Western conquerors, did not attempt to destroy the language, traditions and culture.
Therefore, by playing Trump, Moscow seeks to weaken American pressure, buy time to wear down Ukraine, and deepen the rift between the US and Europe. The groundwork is already in place: Europeans have shouldered most of the burden of supporting Kyiv, while simultaneously facing pressure from Washington on trade, regulation, and sovereignty. Adding to the tension is the prospect of US deals with Russia that bypass Ukraine and its allies. Against this backdrop, right-wing populist forces are growing in popularity across Europe, some of which oppose confrontation with Moscow and the current level of support for Kyiv.
However, even with such trends favourable to Moscow, time is also working against the Kremlin.
A web of constraints
For a long time, the Kremlin has turned losses into political capital: Putin calls the sanctions a catalyst for positive changes in the economy, whilst state media explain setbacks on the front as a confrontation with NATO as a whole. However, such ressentiment has led the Kremlin to objective constraints that reinforce one another and make a change of course ever more costly. A study by the Stanford US–Russia Forum (SURF), co-authored by the columnist, identifies four such constraints.
- “Deathonomics” — a combination of a war economy and social control. Defence and security absorb almost 40% of the federal budget, and the defence-industrial complex remains the last significant engine of the economy, whose growth in 2025 slowed to around 1%. High pay makes contract service the most lucrative, and often the only, choice for many men. Together with an electronic military draft registry linked to all major government databases, this allows losses to be replenished without declaring a state of war and disrupting stability in the country’s political centres — primarily Moscow and St. Petersburg. Stopping the war would undermine this system, and the return of more than 700,000 servicemen (according to Putin himself), with a sharp fall in income, would create the risk of the largest wave of violence and crime since the 1990s.
- Dependence on China, through which around 90% of sanctioned technology imports for Russia’s defence industry pass. Beijing supports Russia’s war economy not out of allied solidarity, but out of pragmatic calculation. The war strengthens China’s influence on Moscow, expands its influence in Central Asia at Moscow’s expense, and diverts US resources from the Pacific region and Taiwan, where Beijing has its own claims linked to historical grievances against the West. Therefore, a Russia at war is more advantageous to China, although it, like the West, seeks to restrain any nuclear escalation on its part. The Kremlin, however, cannot openly admit this dependence without undermining its image as a great power.
- Radically minded pro-war citizens of Russia. They share the Kremlin’s anti-Western aims but accuse it of corruption, deceit and indecisiveness. Such criticism poses greater risks for the Kremlin than liberal criticism: it cannot be dismissed as “foreign influence” because it comes from within the official course. These people may perceive a peace without victory as a betrayal. Repression against them, however, could confirm their righteousness in the eyes of wider pro-war sections of society and weaken combat-ready units. Prigozhin’s mutiny demonstrated the unpredictability of such a conflict.
- Putin’s desire to preserve his own life. The Kremlin is effectively bound by the will of a single man who likened himself to Peter the Great and devotes significant resources to security and life extension. Such caution may temporarily restrain certain forms of escalation, but peace perceived as defeat also threatens his rule. Moreover, his replacement would be dangerous for the elites too: the power vacuum could be exploited by pro-war radicals.
Together, these constraints could trap the Kremlin. On the one hand, ending the war without a victory could threaten rapid destabilisation, and this is unlikely to change even if Ukraine agrees to cede all of Donbas: an independent, pro-Western Ukraine, in the Kremlin’s logic, most likely remains a defeat. Peace would also let Europe redirect some resources from supporting Ukraine to accelerating its own rearmament. On the other hand, continuing the war postpones domestic upheaval, but deepens its causes and makes any potential destabilisation even more extensive.
Most potential exits from this web of constraints — from a war freeze to a nuclear strike on Ukraine, a break with China, or replacing Putin — are largely blocked by the same constraints.
Moscow’s window of opportunity
The most favourable outcome for the Kremlin would be the paralysis of the Ukrainian government, leading to capitulation and pro-Russian rule. However, this is unlikely as long as external aid remains, most of which is provided by Europe. Even the destruction of the Ukrainian leadership would more likely consolidate resistance and Kyiv’s allies. Therefore, it is more important for Moscow to cut off Ukraine’s European funding.
The rise to power in Europe of forces willing to cut support for Kyiv could help, but that is a slow path. Meanwhile, Europe is arming itself, and Ukraine’s military capabilities are being enhanced. Hybrid attacks have not stopped these processes, although their number against NATO countries has more than doubled since the American elections in November 2024.
Under these circumstances, the Kremlin may try to force Europeans to urgently redirect resources from Ukraine to their own defence while the war is still ongoing, further weakening Kyiv and, at most, undermining their unity. The instrument could be a limited non-nuclear operation against one or more NATO countries, primarily in the Baltic region, without necessarily redeploying troops from the Ukrainian front. Western intelligence agencies are warning of the risk of such an operation in the near future, and countries on the eastern flank are already preparing for it.
Moscow could calculate that such an operation would demonstrate the unreliability of NATO’s collective security guarantees — both American and intra-European — as well as Europe’s inability to defend itself. Fear and arguments over a response would deepen the divisions within the EU and NATO and strengthen Eurosceptic and pro-Russian forces. At the same time, the Kremlin would secure a “victory” for its own pro-war radicals, likely without direct opposition from Beijing.
Previously, such a risk was also restrained, in part, by the fear of Putin and the Kremlin for their own survival. But maintaining the status quo is also becoming dangerous: the fates of Maduro and Khamenei have shown that the Trump administration, despite the risks and limitations of international law, has limited patience when deals fail to deliver results. Moreover, the crisis of confidence in the West and the accumulation of domestic problems in Russia could, in the Kremlin’s eyes, lower the cost of testing NATO.
Most Western forecasts place a possible operation between 2027 and 2030, after fighting in Ukraine has ceased. However, conditions are most favourable right now: Kyiv is not receiving free arms supplies from the US and depends on European funding, Europe is not yet sufficiently prepared for modern warfare with mass attacks of cheap drones, and allies doubt collective defence. Furthermore, Washington is preoccupied with the midterm congressional elections and a war with Iran. In September, the US warned its allies in Europe and Asia that, due to depleted stockpiles, deliveries of promised weaponry could be delayed by up to five years.
This does not mean an inevitable attack, but it suggests the coming months are a particularly favourable period for the Kremlin to try to escape the trap.
Minsk’s window of opportunity
In a potential operation in the Baltic region, Belarusian territory will be a key asset for Moscow: it flanks Lithuania to the south, and without it, cutting off the Suwałki Corridor between Belarus and Kaliningrad is almost impossible. Even in an attack on other Baltic states, Moscow is unlikely to forgo Belarusian territory — for aviation, drones, reconnaissance and logistics. Lukashenka’s consent is unlikely to be decisive.
In this context, Minsk’s negotiations with Washington should also be viewed. In March, the Belarusian authorities released 250 political prisoners, and after talks with Trump’s special envoy John Coale on 15–16 September, only 25, although according to sources, around 200 had been prepared. Coale expressed hope that during the next visit, in about a month’s time, “hundreds” would be released.
The modest outcome may be explained by the difficulties in bartering for the lifting of sanctions: the transit of potash fertilisers through Lithuania, which Minsk is primarily seeking, depends on Vilnius and the EU, not the US. However, another explanation is also possible. For Minsk, dialogue with Washington is also likely important as a way to avoid deeper involvement in Russia’s war. But if Moscow is turning Belarusian territory into a staging ground for escalation, and the US cannot or will not prevent it, the American track as a kind of security guarantee may lose its meaning for Lukashenka. Consequently, the willingness to release political prisoners in exchange for limited economic concessions may also diminish.
As long as Moscow is playing along with Trump, Minsk’s dialogue with Washington fits its strategy. A new escalation could quickly change this: using Belarus to attack NATO would make further negotiations and the lifting of sanctions difficult to justify. Even a build-up of Russian forces or serious border incidents could make concessions to Minsk politically too costly.
Thus, Minsk’s window may be closing all the faster as Moscow’s opens wider. The next round of talks falls during a period potentially favourable for Russian escalation. Therefore, both the release of political prisoners under the current scheme and the dialogue itself could end by year’s end. This will be determined more in Moscow than in Minsk or Washington.
