47 BELARUS’ RELATIONS WITH UKRAINE AND LITHUANIA BEFORE AND AFTER THE 2006 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Dzianis Melyantsou, Andrej Kazakevich* Abstract This article contains an analysis of the changes in the Belarus’ foreign policy towards its immediate neighbours, Lithuania and Ukraine. Special attention is given to the analysis of reasons and conditions for such considerable changes in the Belarusian authorities’ policies, and the comparison of policies before and after the “reversal” that took place in 2005–2006. The “reversal” was caused by a number of factors, some of which are dependant on the peculiarities of the political development of Belarus such as the political isolation on the part of the West, the aggravation of relations with Russia, the presidential elections of 2006, and the strengthen- ing of the authoritarian regime. Other factors were of external and regional nature such as the coming into power of new political leaders in the Ukraine in 2004, and the growing acuteness of the energy security problem. For better or worse, the events of 2005–2006 have significantly altered the foreign policy orientation of Belarus, which promises both new challenges and new opportunities. 1. Belarus-Lithuania relations Until recently, Belarus-Lithuania relations remained in the shadow of the official relations between Minsk and Moscow, and only after the presidential elections in 2006 and the changes in the international context did relations between the two neighbouring countries become more dynamic and gain more importance for Belarus. This evolution of bilateral relations can firstly be -ex plained by the deterioration of Russia-Belarus relations, and the actual winding *Dzianis Melyantsou, MA in Political Science, analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Stu- dies (http://belinstitute.eu), e-mail:
[email protected]; Andrej Kazakevich, political analyst, the Head of the Bachelor program “Political Science.