Belarus Review by iSANS — September 22, 2025 

According to Ukrainian monitoring channels, between 15 and 21 September at least one Russian unmanned aerial vehicle was recorded in Belarusian airspace. No reports were received of its destruction or crash.

The joint Russian-Belarusian strategic military exercise Zapad-2025 continued. On 15 September, one of the key stages of the practical phase took place at the Barysau training ground. Troops delivered fire strikes against the notional enemy, employing drones, tank units firing from covered positions, launches of anti-tank guided missiles, and the actions of mobile fire groups. Tasks also included the evacuation of wounded personnel and damaged equipment using robotic platforms. Representatives of 23 states observed the exercise, among them three from NATO member states (U.S.A, Türkiye and Hungary), 17 from the military-diplomatic corps, and a representative of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, who attended with the personal authorisation of the organisation’s Secretary General.

On 16 September, the focus shifted to ensuring the survivability of aviation, specifically the dispersal of aircraft using road airstrips. According to the Belarusian Ministry of Defence, a pair of Su-25 attack aircraft of the 116th Assault Aviation Base landed on a road section in Dziarzhynsk district, Minsk region. After landing, engineering personnel prepared the aircraft for a new sortie to strike targets at one of the ranges. This marked the final event of Zapad-2025 in Belarus. On the same day, the culminating phase of the exercise unfolded at the Mulino training ground in Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia, with participation by Belarus’s 120th Mechanised Brigade. Defence Minister Viktar Khrenin observed the manoeuvres.

Comments also emerged regarding the exercise of nuclear weapons use and deployment of the “Oreshnik” missile system during Zapad-2025. On 15 September, Khrenin noted that “at the higher, operational-strategic level, […] we managed to incorporate into the exercise planning questions of the use of more powerful or more formidable weapons of destruction.” On 16 September, Chief of the General Staff Pavel Muraveika was more explicit: “We fulfilled all the tasks we set ourselves during the exercise. Among the key ones were planning and consideration of the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons, as well as the assessment and deployment of the Oreshnik mobile missile system.”

On 21 September, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence reported that Russian troops who had taken part in Zapad-2025 had departed for their permanent bases in Russia. The ministry published photographs of Russian military equipment loaded on trains. It was also reported that a train carrying personnel of the 120th Mechanised Brigade, who had participated in manoeuvres at Russian training grounds, had returned to Belarus.

According to the Ministry of Defence, around 6,850 troops in total took part in Zapad-2025 on Belarusian territory, including roughly 1,000 Russian servicemen.

On 17 September, Aliaksandar Bialiaeu was appointed Deputy Commander of the Air Force and Air Defence — Chief of Aviation. He had previously served as commander of the 50th Mixed Aviation Base.

On September 19, at a gathering dedicated to Motor Rifle Troops Day, Belarusian Defence Minister Viktar Khrenin spoke about combat training, as quoted by the Ministry of Defence: “Our units are gaining invaluable experience in joint training with military personnel who have gained combat experience during [the war in Ukraine],” he said. Khrenin was likely referring to the training of Belarusian Armed Forces personnel at military training centers in Russia. According to the official, mechanized units (brigades) are being equipped with new and modernized weapons and military equipment. In 2025 alone, motor rifle units received dozens of combat vehicles, including 15 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles (likely upgraded versions — translator’s note) and 20 BTR-70MB1 armored personnel carriers (a Belarusian modernization of the BTR-70 — translator’s note), as well as modern individual protective gear (body armor, helmets, and fragmentation-resistant goggles).

In an interview with Russian journalists on September 21, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktar Khrenin stated that Belarus is interested in reducing tensions with Poland: “We see that the course taken by the Polish military differs somewhat from the words of the political leadership. Of course, we are interested in reducing military tensions, above all. After all, Poland is our neighbour. As our president says, you cannot choose your neighbours. We do not want to go to war with them”.

On 19 September, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya stated that she welcomed the release of some political prisoners last week, stressing that this should not be a one-off gesture but the beginning of a systemic process: the release and rehabilitation of all, and an end to repression. According to human rights defenders, more than 1,300 people remain political prisoners, and arrests continue. Tsikhanouskaya called the regime’s rhetoric about “national unity” contradictory against the backdrop of deportations of those released, and urged genuine unity through freedom, dignity, and national dialogue.

On 20 September, Li Xi, member of the CPC Politburo Standing Committee and Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, visited Minsk. During the talks, Aliaksandr Lukashenka made several points in his public remarks. He described the closure of the Polish border as “an unfriendly step against China”, stressing that it was more of “a political and image move” than an economic one: “There has been a lot in the media recently, especially in connection with your visit, of insinuations regarding the closure of the border between Belarus and Poland. I understand that this is most likely an unfriendly step by the Poles — political, image-related — against the People’s Republic of China. But not at all economic. An empire such as China will easily cope.” He proposed to Li Xi a closed part of the conversation: “After our meeting, one on one, I would like to tell you something and share our data. The matter here is not about Belarus. Poland is playing the role of a galloping horse in the interests of other states.”

The visit took place against the backdrop of statements by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski that the opening of the border would be linked to China’s assistance in ensuring its security. Polish media, citing diplomats, reported Beijing’s intention to “have a tough talk” with Lukashenka. According to Poland’s Border Guard Service, 330 attempts at illegal border crossing were recorded over the weekend.

After Poland closed the last functioning border crossing point on 12 September, around 1,500 Polish lorries were stranded in Belarus. They can only leave by returning via the Polish-Belarusian section, but this route is now closed. All the vehicles’ temporary import permits into the EAEU are expiring. Under the law, this gives the Belarusian authorities the right to impose fines and even confiscate the vehicles. The State Customs Committee has so far decided, “in the spirit of good neighbourliness”, to extend the trucks’ stay for another 10 days, but beyond that the situation remains uncertain. Hauliers complain that in practice they had only 50 hours to prepare after Warsaw had announced the border closure. As a result, hundreds of lorries are stuck in Brest and at terminals. Bypassing through Lithuania or Latvia is impossible due to existing restrictions: Polish lorries are not permitted to travel across Belarusian territory beyond the border. The Belarusian side is thus using the situation as leverage in response to Warsaw’s decision: Polish businesses have become hostages, and the threat of vehicle confiscation strengthens Minsk’s bargaining position.

For Armenia’s Independence Day, Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s press service sent congratulations only to “the people of Armenia” (without mentioning the leadership), continuing the practice of addressing countries that do not recognise him as “president” in this manner. The publication recalled that the Belarusian authorities had previously labelled such states as “unfriendly” and imposed restrictions on their investors; Armenia has not yet been formally added to this list. Context: in 2024–2025 relations between Minsk and Yerevan worsened — Armenia recalled its ambassador; Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan linked a return to CSTO work to Belarus either leaving the organisation or Lukashenka issuing an apology, against the backdrop of reports about his contacts with Baku before the 2020 war over Nagorno Karabakh. Media also published materials about Minsk–Azerbaijan military-technical cooperation.

The ex-security officers’ initiative BELPOL held a closed briefing at Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on risks stemming from the Lukashenka regime. Particular attention was paid to the construction of a radioactive waste storage facility near the Lithuanian border. According to BELPOL, in August 2025 a final decision was made: the facility will be located at the Astravets NPP site, just 22 km from the border. It concerns medium- and low-level waste; the project is valued at 941 million BYN, with launch scheduled for 2030, and the contractor is the state enterprise BelRAO. Documentation was handed over to Lithuanian partners. The briefing also addressed the forced expulsion of political prisoners to Lithuania and the possibility of verifying deportees through the BELPOL database.

On 16 September, the House of Representatives ratified an Agreement with Russia on measures for the mutual protection of citizens from unfounded prosecution by third countries and international judicial bodies. The document had been signed in March 2025 in Moscow. The sides grant personal immunity (for the duration of office, including for personal actions) to key officials — presidents, prime ministers, foreign and defence ministers, interior ministers, speakers of parliament, judges, security service chiefs, the central bank governor, and others. Functional immunity is also enshrined for current and former high-ranking officials. Each side undertakes to refuse requests from third countries and, if necessary, to conduct investigations independently.

On 16–17 September, Lukashenka announced the phased and “calm” release of detainees, tying the process to the decisions of the “Eismont commission” and the ideological apparatus. He explicitly mentioned Andrzej Poczobut, stressing that he would “step back” if the commission deemed someone a “scoundrel”. In the same period, a decree was signed “pardoning” 25 convicts, including those sentenced in “extremist-related” cases. Lukashenka separately emphasised that Poland and Lithuania “have nothing to do with pardons”, accusing neighbours of seeking to “ingratiate themselves” with relatives of prisoners. At the same time, he claimed that “the greater half of inmates” had already “come to understand” and “condemn those who fled”.

According to Belstat, in August 2025 Belarus’s GDP growth accelerated to 1.6% after 1.3% in July, with agriculture being the main driver: output rose by 34.2% thanks to the shifted timing of the harvest campaign.

Colony staff forced ex-political prisoner Illya Dubski to remove the tattoo with the «Pagonya» emblem on his arm, he told the Dissidentby initiative after his release. He had to cut off the tattoo with a blade, which left a scar on his arm. He said that he was under pressure to do this — the staff threatened to transfer him to the so-called “low social status” (such prisoners are forced to do the dirtiest work, and they are beaten and humiliated) if he did not remove the tattoo. Dubski was detained in 2020 and sentenced to five years of imprisonment for inciting hostility. He was pardoned on 11 September 2025, among 52 people who were released and taken to Lithuania after a visit to Belarus by Trump’s representative, John Cole.

Singer, guide, and teacher Alyaksei Halich received 15 days of administrative arrest for “unauthorised picketing on the Internet.” He served his sentence and was released, according to “Viasna” Human Rights Centre.

Yaroslava Khromchenkova, a Russian citizen living in Belarus, was found guilty on 9 September of facilitating extremist activities and discrediting Belarus. The Homel Regional Court sentenced her to three years of imprisonment. She was detained on 23 April along with other Mazyr residents and a resident of neighbouring Yelsk. It was reported that Khromchenkova was likely persecuted in connection with the “Belarusian Hajun case”. “Viasna” reported at least 67 confirmed defendants in this case. The total number of detainees is probably much higher. Arrests in the case are still taking place.

Mikalai Statkevich, a 69-year-old veteran opposition politician and candidate in the 2010 presidential elections, refused to leave Belarus when the authorities tried to deport him on 11 September along with other 51 prisoners after their release from prison as a result of a pardon by Lukashenka. He stayed in the neutral zone of the Belarusian-Lithuanian border for several hours and refused to leave. Then he left the neutral zone and returned to Belarus. According to the Office of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Statkevich was taken away by masked men in an unknown direction. According to available information, he is now back in the Hlybokae colony in the Vitsebsk region. Statkevich’s wife, Maryna Adamowich, visited the Hlybokae colony, but the colony administration refused to confirm that Statkevich was with them. They promised to respond to her appeal in writing within 15 days. This situation when the whereabouts and the condition of Mikalai Statkevich are unknown and when he is in the hands of the authorities, can be qualified as enforced disappearance. On 14 September, Maryna Adamovich filed a missing person’s report with the police. According to Belarusian state media, 52 people were released as a result of a pardon on 11 September. “A pardon means a full release from punishment,” explained Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer of “Viasna” Human Rights Centre. Those released were forced to leave the country, although the law does not allow for conditions of pardon. Passports of some of them were not given to them at the time of the deportation. “The expulsion of citizens from their own country is a gross violation of national law and international obligations of Belarus. It contradicts the basic UN documents and a number of conventions aimed at preventing statelessness. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court classifies deportation and forced displacement as crimes against humanity,” commented Leanid Marozau, Tsikhanouskaya’s legal adviser.

On 15 September, the BEROC research center was recognised as an extremist group. BEROC has been operating since 2008. One of its main goals is to generate and disseminate new knowledge about the development of the Belarusian economy, its problems, and trends. Its scholarly and applied research is aimed at formulating a strategy to promote economic growth and improve the quality of economic policy in Belarus.

The Prosecutor General, Andrei Shved, sent an application to the Supreme Court for the recognition of the European Humanities University as an “extremist organisation”. “The European Humanities University, positioning itself as a Belarusian university in exile, carries out purposeful work to destabilise the socio-political situation in the country, provides methodological, organisational, and financial assistance to representatives of radical politicised groups, and is used by the security services of some neighbouring states to harm the interests of Belarus. The declared goals are to prepare Belarusian youth for the implementation of Western scenarios for the transformation of the political system in Belarus, to promote “alternative” interpretations of historical, cultural, and other events, so-called democratic values, and ideas of ‘Europeanness’,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement. The European Humanities University was founded in Minsk in 1992, but has been operating in Vilnius since 2004, as its license was revoked in Belarus. About 80% of the university’s current students are Belarusians. Belarusians also make up a significant part of the teaching staff. The website and social media of the European Humanities University were declared “extremist” on 20 August.

On 16 September, the Minsk City Court sentenced journalist and political commentator Ihar Iliyash to four years of imprisonment in a high-security colony for an interview he gave to Ukrainian and independent Belarusian and Russian media, which was qualified by the investigation as “assistance to extremist groups”. Also, as stated in the case file, Iliyash “was engaged in collecting data for foreign intelligence services”, this was how his interviews with the Ukrainian media were qualified. Iliyash pleaded not guilty to these charges. Iliyash was detained in October 2024 on charges of discrediting Belarus and facilitating extremist activities. Before that, his wife, Belsat TV channel journalist Katsyaryna Andreeva, had been arrested in November 2020 and sentenced to two years of imprisonment for “organising an illegal protest”. In February 2022, while she was serving her sentence, she was sentenced to an additional eight years of imprisonment on charges of “high treason”. She serves her prison term now.

The first payments were made to the released and deported political prisoners by the BYSOL solidarity fund. Over 100,000 Euro have been raised for them. “It’s a lot of money, but they have great needs: they were thrown out of Belarus without anything, some even without documents. Payments to the deportees began immediately upon receipt of applications”, BYSOL reported. The payments consist of two parts: funds from the International Humanitarian Fund, from which every deportee has the right to receive 1,000 Euro, and funds raised through BYSOL fundraising efforts. The process is complicated by the fact that many deportees were left without passports, but BYSOL is working on a solution for this problem. BYSOL, together with colleagues from the humanitarian and human rights sectors, is collecting information about the needs of the released. “Our task is not only to help specific people in crisis, but also to create an effective and operational system that can respond to new challenges,” BYSOL commented. – “We are very clear about the high probability that, following the first group, we will see new groups of those released. In this regard, the assistance system will continue to work with increased workload. And to help former political prisoners, we will use the resources that we already have thanks to you, and we will continue to seek your help.”

On 16 September, Alyaksandr Lukashenka pardoned 25 more people, including those sentenced for extremism. The names of those released have not been announced, and there is no information about their deportation. Therefore, it is impossible to tell how many of the pardoned are on the list of political prisoners. According to the BelTA state news agency, 12 women and 13 men were among those pardoned. Nineteen pardoned persons were under the age of 40, many of them have children. One of the women is a mother with many children. “All of them admitted their guilt and repented of what they had done, and undertook to lead a law-abiding lifestyle,” BelTA wrote. According to “Viasna” Human Rights Centre, there were political prisoners among those pardoned.

Human rights activists have recognised the previously detained journalist Kiryl Pazniak as a political prisoner. Pazniak was detained on 4 September, the day when Platform 375, the project in which he worked, was recognised as an “extremist formation”. Human rights activists also recognised 16 more people as political prisoners.

“Viasna” Human Rights Centre compared the figures for new political prisoners since the beginning of the year and those released after being pardoned. Since 18 January 2025, nine waves of pardons of prisoners have been held in Belarus, during which 170 people were released. Human rights activists note that there may be fewer released political prisoners, because, while 31 prisoners were released in July and September, only some of them were “convicted under extremist articles”. From January to September, 283 people have been granted the status of political prisoners. These are people from different regions of Belarus, of different ages and social statuses, who are charged under a number of political articles. Therefore, more people have become political prisoners in 2025 than have been released by the way of pardon.

Dzmitry Semchanka, a former employee of the presidential media pool and ex-political prisoner, who was released in the summer of 2025 after three years of imprisonment for “actions aimed at inciting social hostility and discord,” was forced to leave Belarus with his family. According to Semchanka, he left the colony “blacklisted”; in Belarus, he could not buy a SIM card, purchase insurance, or open a bank account. “I’m not even talking about the opportunity to return to the PR and marketing sphere, which I was doing before my arrest.”

On 19 September, the Ministry of Internal Affairs added 14 more people to the list of “persons involved in extremist activities”. Now there are 5,784 persons on the list. It includes the entry “released from liability due to the expiration of the period of bringing to responsibility” with regard to persons found guilty under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (“organisation and preparation of actions grossly violating public order, or active participation in them”), according to which the term of prosecution is five years. Participants in the 2020 protests were traditionally condemned under this article. This entry means that, despite the fact that the statute of limitations for bringing to justice under this article has passed, these people were still added to the “list of extremists”, which imposes restrictions on their lives, for example, when looking for job or opening bank accounts.

Political prisoner Mikita Yemyalyanau began to lose his eyesight in the colony. For the past two years, he has been banned from receiving medical packages, so he cannot take any vitamins or medicines. He risks losing his health irrevocably, “Viasna” noted. Yemyalyanau has been held behind bars since October 2019. In 2020, he was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment on three criminal counts, but the court of appeal reduced the sentence to four years. He was later tried twice under the charge of malicious disobedience to the colony administration, which added three years of imprisonment. He was transferred to a prison regime twice. During his imprisonment, he went on hunger strikes several times.

iSANS released a research report, “The crime of Incitement to Genocide of Ukrainians in Russian and Belarusian Propaganda”. The main objective of this study was to identify, from the entire range of anti-Ukrainian rhetoric of Russian and Belarusian propaganda, statements containing “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” of Ukrainians, as well as to analyse and classify these statements. Such statements are qualified as an atrocity crime according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Other goals of the study include drawing the international community’s attention to the large scale and gravity of the crime of incitement to genocide of Ukrainians and presenting recommendations on the active use of international and national legal instruments to hold perpetrators accountable.

The British Embassy in Minsk welcomed a decree of 16 September pardoning 25 people convicted, among other things, of “extremist crimes”. “We welcome yesterday’s announcement on the release of 25 political prisoners in Belarus. We hope that the remaining 1,000+ political prisoners will be released soon and reunited with their families and loved ones,” the British Embassy said in a statement.

The Delegation of the European Parliament for Relations with Belarus issued a statement in connection with the disappearance of Mikalai Statkevich. The Delegation expressed its deep concern in this regard. It underlined that, after his recent release from prison, Statkevich was forcibly taken to the border with Lithuania, where he refused deportation and chose to remain in his homeland. Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown. The refusal of the Belarusian authorities to disclose his location and condition raised grave fears that he has once again been returned to detention. This situation constitutes an enforced disappearance – a gross violation of international law. The Delegation stressed that the Belarusian authorities bear full responsibility for Statkevich’s life and safety. It called on the Belarusian authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts and condition of Mikalai Statkevich, guarantee his safety and freedom, end the practice of using political prisoners as bargaining chips, and unconditionally release all those imprisoned for exercising their fundamental rights. It further urged the Belarusian authorities to put an end to the practice of forcibly deporting former political prisoners. “The heart of a free Belarus continues to beat thanks to people like Mikalai Statkevich. His disappearance is not only an attack on one man but on the very hope of a democratic Belarus”, the statement concluded.

On 19 September, at the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, an interactive dialogue was held on the report of the Group of Independent Experts on the situation of human rights in Belarus, established by the Human Rights Council, “Closing the Accountability Gap for Human Rights Violations and Related Crimes in Belarus”. In the report, the experts concluded that some of the human rights violations recorded in Belarus since 2020 amount to international crimes, as they were committed intentionally as part of a large-scale and systematic attack on a part of the civilian population of Belarus, and the perpetrators of such violations knew about the attack and that their actions were part of it. Experts believe that “The Republic of Belarus is responsible and must be held accountable for serious, systematic, and widespread politically motivated human rights violations against members of the population who actually or allegedly oppose the Government.” The Permanent Representative of Belarus to the UN Office in Geneva, Larysa Belskaya, stated that Belarus does not recognise the country mandates for Belarus established in the Human Rights Council. She also stated that the purpose of the UN Group of Independent Experts is to systematically denigrate Belarus in order to justify political pressure and economic sanctions against Belarus.

A side event, “Give a Voice to the Victims: Human Rights Violations in Belarus” was also held on the margins of the Council session, organised by the Permanent Mission of Lithuania to the United Nations. The speakers noted that, despite the isolated releases, repression continues in Belarus, new detentions and repeated arrests occur regularly, forcing many Belarusians to seek refuge abroad. Leanid Marozau, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s legal adviser, informed representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, Nils Muižnieks, about the current human rights situation in the country. He touched upon the release and forced deportation of former political prisoners and raised the issue of Mikalai Statkevich’s fate.

Anti-Polish narratives remained central in regime propaganda. Both officials and propagandists continued to criticise the Polish authorities for closing the border and to emphasise that Belarusian forces had allegedly warned their Polish and Lithuanian counterparts during the incident when Russian drones – some of them flying through Belarusian airspace – entered Poland on the night of 10 September.

In an interview with the Russian magazine Razvedchik, Aliaksandr Lukashenka directly accused Polish politicians, including President Karol Nawrocki, of escalating the situation and supporting exiled opponents of the regime, while repeating that “ordinary Poles” wanted “to develop relations with our country.” On 16 September, he described the Polish authorities as “insane” and “deceiving their people.”

Commentator Andrei Lazutkin in Minskaya Prauda discussed another drone incident in Warsaw’s no-fly zone, involving citizens of Ukraine and Belarus. He advanced a conspiracy theory that Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Polish intelligence services “may well have staged a provocation with drones along the lines of the Reichstag fire” or turned a random incident into an information operation. According to him, one possible goal of such a provocation was to “find a pretext not to reopen the border with Belarus.”

Propagandists also echoed military authorities’ appeals for “good-neighbourly relations,” but framed them in anti-Polish terms. Yauhen Pustavoy argued that Warsaw could strengthen its security only by working closely with Minsk: “While Russians and Ukrainians exchange drone compliments, it would be better for Poles to cooperate with Belarusians – in the areas of air and migration security. But for this, Warsaw must abandon the birth pangs of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.”

Despite such calls for dialogue, anti-Polish rhetoric intensified around the celebration of the so-called “Day of National Unity” on 17 September (a holiday introduced in 2021 to mark the incorporation of Western Belarus into the BSSR under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, although Belarus’s actual borders were defined after World War II in 1945). On 15 September, deputy Vadzim Hihin said that “patriotic forces” believed the term “ethnocide” [of Belarusians by Poles] should be used as widely as “the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War.” He also promoted the terms “Polish occupiers” and “Polish occupation.” Two days later, Lukashenka was formally asked to create a “museum and memorial of Polish ethnocide policy.” He responded that for now it was better “to stop,” as he did not want to “escalate the situation” or give Poland a pretext.

On the eve of the holiday, propagandist Ryhor Azaronak in his Minskaya Prauda column called for an end to attempts “not to offend anyone” [i.e., Poland], and instead to celebrate “loudly and with full voice.” He wrote: “On this day, we should openly, without embarrassment, offer a toast to the one who gave the order for the tanks to advance, to cross the border, to break through — the one who sent us forward, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.” According to Azaronak, in 1939 “Stalin gave the order, Stalin united our lands, Stalin called the Belarusian people to battle, and with him on their banners they prevailed.” He concluded that today the same people are being “led by the Leader (in the sense of a Vozhd’, i.e. a Führer-like figure – translator’s note) Aliaksandr Hryhorievich Lukashenka.”

On 17 September, Aliaksandr Lukashenka convened his “ideological cadre, historical and expert community” for a meeting dedicated to the so-called “Day of National Unity.” He declared that Belarusian authorities had “for many years tried to live in peace with neighbours without throwing unpleasant historical facts in their faces,” while those neighbours allegedly “turned Belarusians into subhumans and outright enemies.”

Lukashenka effectively instructed his subordinates to instil hostility toward Poland and Poles, beginning in schools: “[We must] tell, after years of silence, about the heavy legacy left by Polish rule on lands torn from our Soviet republic.” He tasked the gathering with identifying enemies, creating a pantheon of national heroes, and “clearly, without half-measures” embedding these emphases into school and university curricula. “If from school age we manage to convince, to put into children’s heads what we want and speak about, then we have succeeded. Later it will be difficult to persuade these children otherwise,” he added. Lukashenka also predicted that opponents of Belarusian sovereignty would “endlessly speculate on important historical dates, throwing in fakes about pacts, conspiracies, and other nonsense easily refuted by historical documents,” while casting doubt on the fact that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact marked the beginning of Poland’s partition between the USSR and Nazi Germany. He tasked historians with analysing documents and facts, and ideologists with “transforming this material into narratives, arguments and counterarguments, and working with them in the information field.”

Following the meeting, state media published dozens of stories quoting Lukashenka alongside laudatory pieces praising him personally. Propagandist Ryhor Azaronak called him a “philosopher on the throne” and likened him to Iran’s ayatollahs: “Lukashenka is the Ayatollah of Belarus. A spiritual leader. A patriarch. A guide. And yesterday, on the Day of National Unity, he summoned minds for conversation.” SB. Belarus Segodnya columnist Andrei Mukavozchyk remarked that historians and propagandists had been “assigned new plots” of work and urged that the essence of the holiday be used to remind neighbours that in every partition of Poland “the Poles themselves bore significant blame.”

On 15 September, Lukashenka also met with collaborator Vladimir Saldo, head of Russia’s occupation administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region. He referred to Kherson as a “new region of Russia” and expressed willingness to cooperate: “Know that we will do everything possible to help develop your region – as much as lies within our power.” State media amplified the statement, portraying it as proof of Lukashenka’s eagerness to help. Vadzim Hihin argued that there was “huge demand for expanded cooperation with our country” in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, while Azaronak declared: “Belarusians are where help is needed, where history is being written, where there is room for peaceful labour, construction, and restoration. Where the Russian person fights for our right to life.”

Propagandists also continued to spread the narrative that political prisoners should be forcibly deported from Belarus under the deals struck between the Lukashenka regime and Donald Trump’s administration. Mukavozchyk described the process in transactional terms, using dehumanising language: “… in Belarus there are carcasses sitting in prison that interest the Americans. It is obvious why: they are enemies of Belarus, therefore friends of the West. What we trade these carcasses for is our business <…> The deal is this: we throw the carcasses to the Americans, they lift, for example, sanctions. And the Lithuanians… the Lithuanians will do whatever they are told. That is the fate of limotrophs.”

Although propagandists have become more cautious in commenting on President Trump, their rhetoric still reflects at minimum distrust of the U.S. and its leader. Some go further: Minskaya Prauda columnist Yury Uvarau accused Trump of “denying reality,” claiming he “stubbornly refuses to recognise that the main instigator, sponsor, and provocateur of this war is the United States.” Uvarau even offered “medical recommendations”: “Doctors! Urgently! Trump wants to live in a world entirely matching his imagination. But this is a diagnosis. This illness must be treated. And since a man with such inadequate perception of reality is at the helm of a major nuclear power, the treatment must be immediate.”

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Best regards, iSANS team