On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya met with the former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who served during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
The meeting focused in particular on the events of 2019–2020 and the US efforts at the time to expand the space for Belarus’s independence and reduce its dependence on Russia.
In February 2020, Pompeo became the first US Secretary of State in 26 years to visit Belarus. The visit took place amid an oil dispute between Minsk and Moscow. At the time, Secretary Pompeo reaffirmed the United States’ support for Belarus’s sovereignty and independence and confirmed that US energy companies were ready to supply 100% of the country’s oil needs at competitive prices.
Following the rigged 2020 presidential election and the mass repression that began in August that year, Washington’s approach changed. The US administration stated that the election was neither free nor fair, supported Belarusians’ right to determine their own future, and began coordinating its response with European partners.
Mr. Pompeo later described this period in his memoir, “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love”. He portrays Lukashenka critically, describing him as a politician of the old Soviet school whose main goal was to retain power. According to Mike Pompeo, Lukashenka understood the risks of becoming completely dependent on Moscow, as the absorption of Belarus by Russia could also threaten his own hold on power. For years, he therefore sought to maneuver between Russia and the West.
In his book, Mike Pompeo explains the logic behind Washington’s policy in early 2020: to offer Belarus a genuine alternative to dependence on Russia, including through oil supplies. However, following the election, Lukashenka chose violence and repression against Belarusians, sharply narrowing the room for maneuver between the West and Russia. After 2020, the regime became even more dependent on the Kremlin, and in 2022, it allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
