No one saw it coming when the largest protests in Belarus’ history erupted five years ago — in a country that had already been ruled autocratically by Alexander Lukashenko for more than a quarter of a century. At the time, people took to the streets to protest against the results of the August 9, 2020, presidential election, which was rigged in Lukashenko’s favor.
They were also angered by the authorities’ lack of steps to protect the population against the COVID-19 pandemic and the arrest of the most promising opposition presidential candidates and thousands of citizens. Women organized marches and students took to the streets.
Workers, actors, and athletes protested, diplomats were dismissed, and doctors and teachers wrote open letters to voice their dissatisfaction. In turn, the country’s security forces responded with a wave of violence. Many people were hurt and even killed, with a steady stream of injured people taken directly from police stations to hospitals.
And the Hollywood story of the then housewife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who entered the race for the Belarusian presidency in place of her then-imprisoned husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski, ended without a happy ending. She was forced into exile in Lithuania.
Over the years, Alexander Lukashenko increasingly worked to secure Russia’s support. He helped Vladimir Putin in the war against Ukraine, triggered a migration crisis on the border with the European Union, gained power for another five-year term, and still has no intention of stepping down. But could things have turned out differently?
Could the 2020 protests have sparked lasting change?
The developments in Belarus could not have turned out any differently at the time, says Artyom Shraibman, an expert at the Carnegie Center, a foreign policy think tank. “The West had no leverage at these critical moments to weaken the Lukashenko regime in any way,” the Berlin-based political scientist said in an interview with DW.
DW columnist Alexander Friedman, who teaches Eastern European history at German universities, points to the global political paradigm, which was different in 2020. “From a European perspective, Belarus was perceived as a zone of Russian interests where extreme caution was required,” he said. The situation might have been different if Putin had not supported Lukashenko and had instead taken a neutral position.
Evidence of uprising erased
Five years on, there are no longer even digital traces of the mass protests in Belarus. The media outlets that reported on them at the time are now closed or operate from abroad. Their websites are blocked by the Belarusian authorities.
Many people have also deleted their private photos and videos of the events of 2020, fearful that authorities will use them to identify participants in the protests. Articles, reports, archives, and social media posts have also disappeared.
At the same time, it is increasingly difficult for the regime in Belarus to hide the enormous scale of the repression. According to the human rights center “Viasna” in Belarus, at least 8,519 people have been prosecuted for political reasons since 2020, and a total of more than 60,000 people have been imprisoned.
Among the most prominent prisoners is activist and flutist Maria Kolesnikova, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Her relatives have had no contact with her to this day. The same applies to banker and philanthropist Viktor Babaryka, who is serving a 14-year prison sentence. And human rights activist Ales Bialiatski is currently the only Nobel Prize winner in the world who has to work six days a week in a penal colony. “Bialiatski’s health is deteriorating; he has problems with his eyesight and his legs,” said Leonid Sudalenko, a former political prisoner and Bialiatski’s colleague at Viasna, in an interview with DW.
‘If you want them, take them!’
Even today, Belarusians are still being persecuted in connection with the 2020 protests. Since the beginning of the year, more than 1,700 people have been arrested on administrative, criminal, and politically motivated charges. And those are only the numbers known to human rights activists.
The reasons for detention are manifold. Some were photographed during the protests. Others liked “extremist” web content – although in Belarus, all independent media is classified as “extremist”, including DW. Some left “incorrect” comments on the web, campaigned for the “wrong” candidate in the 2020 elections, made donations or sent parcels to political prisoners. The list of “extremist” offenses is long. For example, a company that produced jewelry pendants in the shape of a map of Belarus was recently labeled “extremist.”
In recent months, the regime has released political prisoners in small groups — more than 300 people in total. In June 2025, this included Siarhei Tsikhanouski, blogger and husband of the leader of the Belarusian democratic forces, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
He was released from custody on the day Alexander Lukashenko met with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Keith Kellogg.
The Belarusian regime makes no secret of the fact that it would release political prisoners in exchange for concessions from the West. Lukashenko declared on July 31 that he was prepared to hand over several thousand people. “If you want them, take them! What do you offer in return?” he wrote after talks with the US delegation.
What can the West do for Belarus?
Artyom Shraibman believes the West could do more to support people in Belarusian prisons. “It could negotiate more actively for the release of these people and offer Lukashenko concessions in terms of his reputation and diplomacy — phone calls, visits and contacts.”
In theory, Western countries could go even further, he said, and “consider lifting some sanctions in order to reach a kind of exchange with Lukashenko to end the migration crisis and release political prisoners.”
But the expert said that such steps would be unlikely to radically change the situation in Belarus. Instead, they could change the prospects of individual victims of this regime. Their fates are largely in the hands of the West. However, since Belarus has not been and is not a priority, there has been no sign of serious willingness to get involved so far.
This article was originally published in Russian
