MINSK

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has walked a tightrope now for nearly 27 years. He’s frequently shrugged off the “last dictator in Europe”, an “autocrat” and other damning epithets.

The one-time state farm director is an earthy-seeming type. He eschews suits for oversize plaid flannel shirts, which befit a massive two-metre frame.

Photo-ops with other heads of the former Soviet Union republics often make them look puny in comparison.

Lumberjack-like, he betrays a rather naive mien, and cannot fake a poker face. His anger when feeling slighted is undisguised.

He is also often simplistically seen as a Kremlin lackey. After all, Belarus gets effectively huge Russian subsidies in the form of low-cost natural gas and electricity, which keep its state-run factories, which churn out solid, while less than high-tech items like farm tractors and giant trucks. Less flashy than their Western counterparts, but regarded as sturdy and reliable.

However, a quarter-century of independence and vacuous talks with Russia, and its President Vladimir Putin, over some amorphous “union state” have led to little concrete.

And he all the more marks his red line.

Belarus will be independent, no matter what the cost. On the May 9 commemoration of V-day, the triumph over Nazi Germany, the state news agency BelTA was unusually awash with defiant language that Belarus would not give up its sovereignty.

“Let’s clearly agree that for the first time in millennia we happen to enjoy the happiness of living on this piece of land and of raising our kids. Let’s, at last, understand that there will be no other land for us and nobody will gift us one,” he said during a speech.

CYNICISM OR REALITY?

One could be forgiven for chalking up the talk to cynicism. After all, Lukashenko’s position was greatly weakened after the latest election fiasco brought tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, onto the streets of Minsk and other cities in protest. Security forces eventually detained up to 30,000 people for mostly short periods, though an estimated 400-500 remain jailed.

But diplomats who follow the country, have worked there and can decipher the cryptic, Sovietesque political vernacular say that much of the verbiage is aimed by Lukashenko at the Kremlin, which has stepped up its efforts at “unification”.

“He may seem to be a Kremlin stooge, but in reality, there is quite a bit of a Belarusian nationalist in him,” said one former ambassador. “He draws the line at the sovereignty of Belarus, and he will not back down from that,” said the former envoy.

FEW DEMOCRATIC ILLUSIONS

Lukashenko does not pretend too hard to be a “democrat”.

He has a track record of at best questionable and at worst rigged re-elections. The security services under his control are efficient, and no one would want to languish in a Belarusian jail.

But his regime has offered a sort of modest, but dependable basic living standard – with roads and hospitals better than those in neighbouring countries.

For a certain part of his “electorate,” that works. Many staple goods are kept at artificially low, state-set prices. Utilities are cheap.

But much of this is due to recent history. Belarus is still a country struggling to define itself. Mostly flat and agricultural, it has been described as a “Soviet theme park.” Belarus eschewed the “shock therapy” employed – either by design or by implosion due to ethnic wars and upheavals – of many other former Soviet republics.

When the country “gained” or –more accurately –had independence thrust upon it in 1991–relatively few people even spoke Belarusian. It was considered either a village language or a vehicle for an intellectual elite, and Russian ruled.

Belarus, more than any other land, was decimated during World War II, and with it, its language.

An estimated one of every three people perished. Obviously, due to being a land inconveniently located between Nazi and Soviet control, it suffered worse than any other in raw death terms.

Lukashenko increasingly points this out, as he did on May 9.

“The world has to know and remember the tragedy of the Belarusian nation. The government will push this topic to the highest international level. Today we should openly say that during the Great Patriotic War, it was the first time Belarusians had faced massive and systematic extermination of the civilian population. Blood of many thousands, millions of innocent victims –women, the elderly, and children –is on hands of the fascists, police goons, and other collaborators.”

SOME SAW DEMISE IN SIGHT

Many thought they saw the writing on the wall last summer. But Lukashenko has weathered that crisis, sparked by mass protests against what his opponents say was vote rigging in his re-election to a sixth term.

Instead, he dug in. In typical conspiratorial fashion, he suddenly announced “revelations” of an alleged U.S.-backed coup attempt to not just oust, but to assassinate him. The only cogent details seemed to relate to a Zoom discussion by Belarusian activists that Lukashenko’s security forces considered an attempted coup.

Few if anyone, takes this seriously, and moreover, the fact that the theory seemed to come out of the blue –and embraced by Moscow –might make Lukashenko more nervous than reassured, given his cat and mouse game with the Kremlin.

WALK THE LINE

None of this is especially new. Lukashenko, in the words of another former Western envoy, has “walked the line” – trying to maintain good ties with Moscow and its cash while occasionally flirting with the West and Western-looking neighbours.

He even dared to maintain contacts with former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, reviled by Kremlin insiders, after Georgia’s 2008 war with Russia. To top it off, Lukashenko’s state-run TV gave the controversial ex-Georgian leader open air time.

And in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and helped set up separatists in eastern Ukraine, Lukashenko met the man put in place as Ukrainian president when mass demonstrations forced Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovich to flee the country.

But now the Kremlin seems to smell blood, and Lukashenko’s options are winnowing. Though Lukashenko often embraces the “Union State” with Russia, the same song and dance has been going on for more than 20 years.

He even famously stormed out of Moscow in 2003 after President Vladimir Putin dismissively said Belarus’s 10 regions could simply join the Russian Federation, thus saving the bother of some amorphous union. Lukashenko said the “offer” was an insult.

DYNASTIC SUCCESSION

Lukashenko’s latest tactic – seemingly his response to the “coup” was to ensure a succession favourable to his world view in the case of his demise. And perhaps keeping the country’s leadership within the framework of his own family – a gambit not usually associated with nations in the middle of Europe.

On victory Day – the most hallowed day in the Belarusian calendar – he signed a decree providing for power to be assumed immediately not by the prime minister, but by the Belarusian Security Council in the event of his sudden demise.

Before the decree was issued, Lukashenko said the change – putting Belarus under the direction of a “collective presidency” — was one of the “principal decisions” of a quarter century in power.

Critics say this approach was predictable, as his eldest son Viktor is seen as the informal head of the Security Council – a 20-member body of senior officials altered in recent months to produce a lineup of fervent Lukashenko loyalists.

But what would amount to a posthumous usurpation of power – with Belarus consigned to authoritarian rule for perhaps decades – would be a problem not just at home.

Moscow would have an easier time co-opting a pliable prime minister.

A family or clan-based system is a harder nut to crack.

But Lukashenko again on Monday held talks with Putin via telephone and is due again to visit Moscow later this week.

“Walking the line” may about to become much trickier.