[baskind]

As someone from Belarus, this is not true at all.

While Lukashenko had some support prior to Aug 2020 election, it dropped to <5% at very best following his ruthless attack and torture of citizens and peaceful protestors.

The only people supporting him now are siloviki, i.e. military and police heads who directly benefit from him remaining in power. Although many within the police elites wish him out as well.

[V-2]

It is generally hard to reason about public support in an authoritarian state, because such states largely control the access to information. So yes, people do hold opinions, but how do they go about forming these opinions? How many are in a position to make an informed decision?

[robotnaoborot]

This is an interesting topic btw. As someone who grew up in USSR I would have to note that nobody took soviet propaganda seriously. People knew media is lying and took all information with a HUGE grain of salt. Meanwhile information is interpreted, silenced and manipulated in (at least mainstream) media all around the world. But people there often take that information for granted because they have trust in there media and believe they live in a free world. And cmon I watch western news a lot and it's full of NLP stamps and very strong opinions which you wouldn't expect from professional journalism but it's just there. The sad truth is that we all live in dystopia. Especially with modern technologies. No KGB or stasi ever dreamed of such having information about peoples lives as some facebook(or government agencies) now have. The scary thing is not surveillance it's mass surveillance. When some opposition can be detected until even they did something wrong just by some patterns like books they read or visiting hackers news.

[sam_lowry_]

> How many are in a position to make an informed decision?

State TV was not very popular even when I lived there some 20ish years ago, and now everyone and their grandma gets their news from Telegram. Telegram usage dropped a bit because many are afraid of having it on their devices, but it is still by far the most popular way of getting news.

It's really hard to estimate the number of those who continue watching state TV. The least educated and people with disabilities watch easy-to-reach Russian propaganda channels as much if not more. Those are at least captivating ;-).

[rich_sasha]

I do wonder, and apologies if this is naive, but with Russian being the de facto official language in Belarus, is it clear that the siloviki are even Belarusian, not Russian? Would you know if the row of riot police were Russian?

I heard this narrative before, and it strikes me as odd that you would find enough people to bully its own nation into submission - physically in the streets.

But of course that happened in Poland too, where Russian was never a widely spoken language, so clearly it’s possible.

[thesmok]

Oh yes, it's totally possible, and happened in Ukraine as well. Generally, a person is not inclined to think what they're doing is wrong, if their paycheck depends on it.

[1270018080]

What do you think Belarus will be like in 2 years? Civil war? Coup? Lukashenko exiled or still in power? Democracy? Russia invading?

[fooey]

Russia won't have to invade, it's more likely Belarus will be willingly annexed.

[baskind]

Civil war is impossible, the nation is united and doesn't want violence (all protests so far have been peaceful).

Coup would've already happened if it could, there is very little chance for it now. Lukashenko has spent decades surrounding himself with loyalist.

With silence and little pressure from Europe and the US towards both Belarus and Russia (apart from symbolic "concerns"), things are unlikely to change.

As long as Putin is in power, Lukashenko will remain in power.

There are many political points for Putin to gain within Russia by annexing Belarus, so that's something that could very well happen in the next few months.

Putin and Lukashenko have had several meetings in regards to Belarus integration over the last few months, with Lukashenko getting $1.5B in donations to support his regime after these meetings. So this seems like the likely scenario. And the time frame is much shorter <12mo.

[AnimalMuppet]

> There are many political points for Putin to gain within Russia by annexing Belarus, so that's something that could very well happen in the next few months.

But it won't happen until Lukashenko thinks there is benefit for Lukashenko. On the bottom line, he doesn't care if it benefits Putin or not.

[robotnaoborot]

Where do you get that number? 5%? From Belsat tv? I'm not from Belarus but I think you are detached from reality. Go to some village or factory where people drink CHERNILA. They all would support Lukashenko. And for a good reason - many would lose their jobs. Because their factory producing some military electronics for Russian tanks would close after losing access to Russian market.