A Bad Game: Russian-Belarusian Relations in 1991–2008

Adam Eberhardt, Gra pozorów. Stosunki rosyjsko-białoruskie 1991–2008, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw, 2008.

The review was prepared by Dzianis Melyantsou, researcher at the Political Sphere Institute and analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS).

Adam Eberhardt’s work, published by the Polish Institute of International Affairs and based on his doctoral dissertation, is an academic monograph on Russian-Belarusian relations. The book consists of five parts devoted to political relations and their conditions, trade, attempts to build a monetary union, energy relations and their prospects, and military relations between Belarus and Russia.

Eberhardt proposes his own periodization of Belarusian-Russian relations. In the first period, 1991–1994, the dominant process was the disintegration of ties inherited from the Soviet Union. Russia’s influence on Belarusian affairs was still relatively limited. Moscow placed its hopes on Viachaslau Kebich in the presidential election, but Aliaksandr Lukashenka won and soon began making pro-Russian gestures that were noticed in the Kremlin.

In the second period, 1995–1999, the integration project began to take shape. It was needed by the Belarusian side as a way to overcome economic difficulties and by the Russian side for propaganda purposes. Later, with Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the character of relations changed: Moscow began to demand more concrete benefits from integration, while Minsk tried to preserve the advantages of dependence without losing sovereignty.

The book’s strength is its systematic treatment of the different dimensions of the relationship. Eberhardt does not reduce the subject to declarations of “brotherhood” or to formal integration documents. He shows the permanent bargaining behind them: disputes over energy prices, access to markets, ownership of infrastructure, political loyalty and military cooperation.

The title, A Game of Appearances, captures the main logic of the relationship. Both sides repeatedly simulated movement toward deep integration, while in practice each pursued its own interests. Belarus used integration rhetoric to secure economic support and political room for manoeuvre; Russia used it to maintain influence and to demonstrate the attractiveness of its regional project.

The monograph is valuable for readers interested in the mechanisms of asymmetric dependence, the politics of post-Soviet integration and the limits of Russian influence in Belarus. It also shows that Russian-Belarusian relations were never as simple or as harmonious as official rhetoric suggested.