Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, has now finally taken what seems to be a decisive turn towards Moscow after the recently forced landing in the country of an EU-registered airliner.

The Ryanair 737 was diverted while overflying Belarusian airspace, forced to land in the capital Minsk, all to nab a 26-year-old journalist who had been living in exile in Lithuania and was critical of the government.

Amid an uproar of epic proportions in the European Union, sanctions followed – Belarus has effectively become a no-fly zone for EU aircraft.

But in Moscow, there was relief and reassurance. Lukashenko was feted in the Black Sea coastal resort of Sochi by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and another $500 million “loan” by the Kremlin – part of a planned package – was unlocked.

Lukashenko reciprocated. He invited jurists from the unrecognised, Russian-sponsored statelets in separatist areas of eastern Ukraine to come to Belarus and lend their jurisprudence to the trial of the journalist and seeks to open-air flights to Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014 from Ukraine. All evidently part of a decisive move to the Kremlin camp.

TWISTS AND TURNS OF A WILY LEADER

In 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was an obvious choice for many citizens of Belarus. He vowed Soviet-style surety. A basic safety net. Subsidised food staples.

He had the “right stuff”. Not a stiff suit. A workingman’s creds and threads. Flannel shirts. Photo ops in gritty factories. Driving Belarusian tractors in wheat fields. Fitting for a one-time Soviet farm manager. No corrupt oligarchs, no “shock-therapy” economics that would leave many behind.

Lukashenko was the only member of Belarus’s parliament to vote against a motion to endorse the dissolution of the Soviet state.

COUNTRY WITH IDENTITY CRISIS

Of all Soviet republics, Belarus had perhaps the least inclination to “independence”. It could be said that it was almost pried out of the empire. Belarusian, though the state language – was greatly overshadowed by Russian. It was used by some intellectuals and people in far-flung rural areas.

So wiped out during World War II that the language- Slavic but still not Russian – nearly died out. That has now changed — with Belarusian, the choice of many young people.

As he took office, Lukashenko emphasised ties to Russia. Soviet-era symbols stayed. The national anthem is still the Soviet-version one, albeit with new lyrics jettisoning Marxist-Leninist jargon. He mostly used Russian, not Belarusian (albeit with a tell-tale accent).

LUKA TOOK THE MONEY BUT PLAYED HIS OWN HAND

So obscure to most in the ex-Soviet Union that many thought of it as little more than an extension of Russia, soon to be absorbed or made completely irrelevant.

Loyalty was guaranteed; after all, Belarus got cut-rate energy supplies to help prop up its rather staid economy of state-owned industries, dominated by exports like slightly outdated but reliable tractors, cargo trucks, and fertiliser.

Under the surface, though, things were a bit different.

Mundane-seeming and semi-forgotten by the rest of the world – or Europe – what was increasingly seen as a Soviet throwback and just a poor man’s version of Russia – slowly evolved in its own way.

Belarus sustained perhaps the largest loss of life in World War II (up to one in three residents of some regions). It suffered the greatest contamination of any country due to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Soviet Ukraine.

The rhetoric remained the same, at least superficially. Belarus and Russia established a murky “union state”, though what this meant in practice was an open border between the two, guaranteeing effective Russian subsidies for any exports from Belarus, 10 million, and Russia, 140 million. And not much else.

Lukashenko’s often erratic style, his increasingly autocratic grip, alienated many at home and abroad. Later elections were highly suspect or derided as shams.

“BELARUSIAN PATRIOT”?

Yet, at the same time, ironically, would-be opposition types thrived, perhaps unwittingly empowered by a dictatorial but rather weak authoritarian system. Harassed, sometimes detained, but functioning.

Lukashenko taunted Moscow with the occasional flirt with the EU, Ukraine, even Kremlin-hate figure Mikheil Saakashvili – the ex-leader of Georgia – who now works in the high levels of the Ukrainian government.

Diplomats who have served in Belarus say Lukashenko is the ultimate enigma. Certainly, using Russian money to keep his state-dominated economy alive. But too simplistically dismissed as a Russian lackey.

His label as a Soviet relic is misleading, many of them say.

“Lukashenko has demonstrated that he highly values his country’s independence and sovereignty. He has managed to build one of the most consolidated, adaptive authoritarian regimes in the post-Soviet space, and perhaps in the world,” analyst Artyom Shraibman wrote for the Carnegie Moscow Centre.

“Natural political intuition has helped him construct—despite Belarus’s lack of any special natural or strategic resources—a governing system that suits his methods of dealing with the Belarusian people as well as with external forces. When economic disputes and other disagreements between Moscow and Minsk have unfolded, Lukashenko has shown an independent streak and has courted European support to gain leverage when doing so suits him.”

Lukashenko became something of a problem child for the Kremlin when he started to steadfastly proclaim that whatever the nature of the Russian-Belarus “union state”, Minsk would never relinquish its sovereignty.

The peak seemed to come in 2003, when Lukashenko basically stormed out of a meeting with Putin in Moscow when the Kremlin leader blithely scoffed at the still muddy “union state”, saying Belarus’ regions could simply become part of Russia. Lukashenko waited until getting back to Minsk before proclaiming he had been insulted.

Recent statements by “Luka” – before and after the aircraft incident – have been vociferous in saying Belarus would never be annexed or lose its sovereignty.

UNQUESTIONED CONTROL

The ex-Soviet country’s leader of 27 years appears unchallenged in his control over the affairs of state, but signs and steps he has taken even in recent days appear to put to an end a decade-long tightrope act between East and West.

And the Belarusian leader – who rose through the Soviet system as a state farm manager and, at least, initially, a popular anti-corruption crusader – appeared to be resorting to both traditional and new levers to maintain his grip on political power.

Lukashenko’s hard line on dissent and brutal treatment of opponents is not new. But Western countries appeared willing to look the other way as the Belarusian leader played both sides of the card.

UNUSUALLY HARSH REACTION

The detained journalist Roman Protosevich made a tearful 90-minute appearance on Belarusian television, saying he respected Lukashenko, criticising opposition activists and acknowledging he helped organise mass protests last year to denounce allegations the president had rigged his re-election to a sixth term.

The “interview” featuring Protosevich under a spotlight in a darkened studio drew worldwide condemnation as being redolent of the most repugnant excesses of the Soviet past.

“To make someone appear on television in this way brings to mind the worst practices of both the early and later Soviet periods,” said Ukrainian commentator Vitaly Portnikov, who as a student wrote highly-publicised treatises on propaganda dating back to the Stalinist period. “People were accused of God knows what.”

A German government spokesman said the interview was “absolutely disgraceful and implausible.”

CRIMEA AND “PEOPLES REPUBLICS”

Lukashenko said he was working with Russia to arrange for state airline Belavia flights to Crimea. Such an arrangement would fully embrace a Russian act that has been universally condemned. It would also end Minsk’s long-running role as a mediator of sorts between Kyiv and Moscow.

Lukashenko said he would invite investigators from the two separatist “people’s republics” who have seized control over large tracts of eastern Ukraine to question Protosevich – alleged to have joined a Ukrainian right-wing militia.

DIPLOMATIC ISOLATION

Also, last week, Belarus issued orders to trim the numbers of diplomats authorised to work at the U.S. embassy.

The head of the Russian SVR external intelligence service pledged, alongside his Belarusian opposite number (still called the KGB in post-Soviet times), “in the spirit of traditional fraternal relations to conduct joint work to counter the destructive activities of the West aimed at destabilising the political and socio-economic situation in the union state”.

But Lukashenko, apparently still spooked by “revelations” by those intelligence services of a plot to topple and murder him, also stuck to his mantra of upholding his country’s sovereignty and identity.

He pressed on with a drive to guard against any suggestion of such a coup d’etat by boosting the role of the country’s National Security Council – “as a collegial coordinating political body in defending Belarus’s independence, territorial integrity and constitutional structure”.

Critics have suggested that the move is intended to ensure a family dynasty as Lukashenko’s eldest son Viktor is the council’s key figure.

He exploited his reputation as a young, thrusting anti-corruption advocate to first secure election in 1994 after widespread disillusion with the country’s first leaders, largely intellectual or colourless in their approach.

This has become somewhat modified over time, with Lukashenko trying to nurture a national identity that suited his main aim of remaining in power and keeping from being swallowed by Russia.

When Lukashenko courted the West in recent years, visitors to Minsk included U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

MASS POST-ELECTION PROTESTS CHANGED EVERYTHING

But last year’s mass protests against what demonstrators said was a rigged election, with crowds of more than 100,000 pouring through Minsk’s streets and the uncompromising measures to halt them – with more than 30,000 detained at some point – have pushed him into a new defensive posture.

And the diversion of the Ryanair flight to Vilnius appears to have consolidated him in that position.

Lukashenko defied the torrent of world criticism, saying his actions were intended to defend Belarus against opposition activists plotting a “bloody rebellion”.

And his latest meeting with Putin just after the incident with the aircraft produced no significant move to bolster the “union state” sought by Putin. The Kremlin leader appeared to be biding his time, saying the main point was “doing this without haste, without getting ahead of ourselves, by acting gradually”.

Lukashenko could be in for a rougher ride if EU leaders press on with pledges to hit the country’s economic assets – mainly the export of potash, which accounts for about 20 percent of world supply.

French writer Virginie Symaniec decried what she said was the West’s realisation latterly – after 27 years – of the extent of Lukashenko’s effect on his people and the region and suggested that eyes should be kept firmly on developments in Russia.

“We can’t remake the past, but should we not have asked this question at least a bit more seriously in 1994 about not condoning the installation of a dictatorship in such a strategic place, that we should have defended neutrality with all our might – the constitution and, above all, the political rights of Belarusians?” she wrote on her Facebook page.

“Put simply, it is better to build your boat before the floodwaters arrive … From 1995, people in Minsk were saying that as long as fascism remained at the scale of Belarus, that was all right, but it would be better for Europe that it not take on the scale of Russia. What is so hard to understand?”