Yuri Felshtinsky: The Fall Of The Russian Empire May Begin With Belarus

• 24.09.2025, 15:11

By losing the "Belarusian bridgehead," Putin will lose the war.

The famous American historian and writer Yuri Felshtinsky presented in Prague a new book - "Natallia Radzina's Belarus: Journalist vs. Dictator". After the meeting with readers, which took place on September 17 in the cultural space "New Place," Yuri Felshtinsky told "Radio Svaboda" how he became interested in the topic of Belarus, why he chose the editor-in-chief of the website Charter97.org Natallia Radzina as the heroine of the book, and also expressed his opinion that the fall of Lukashenko's regime may lead to the collapse of the Russian empire:

- I knew Natallia Radzina as a journalist: she interviewed me for my website, and from time to time we crossed paths in Warsaw at some conferences.

I got the idea for the book relatively spontaneously, at the Forum of Free Russia, Natalia gave a very short lecture about Belarus - for those people who don't understand what Belarus is at all. In 10 minutes - from ancient times to the present day.

And this speech made a strong impression on me, because I suddenly realized that I didn't understand anything about Belarus. The main thing I didn't understand was that it is a European country oriented towards the West, and that it has always been so, that it is not some younger partner or younger brother oriented towards Russia.

Any person who looks at the map of Europe understands that Belarus is a gateway to Europe, if you look from the side of Russia. And, accordingly, it is a buffer protecting Europe from Russian aggression, if you look from the European side. In this sense, it becomes clear that Belarus determines European security - either in the interests of Europe (being a buffer) or in the interests of Russia, being a bridgehead.

Unfortunately, the last decades we see that Belarus has been gradually slipping from a buffer position to the position of a bridgehead, which in 2022 led to the fact that Russia started a full-scale war against Ukraine from the territory of Belarus, and to this day uses Belarus as a bridgehead threatening the security of Europe.

Now it is already leading to obvious aggressive consequences, such as others Earlier Russia used Belarus as a potential springboard for nuclear confrontation - accordingly, it signed some agreements with Belarus on the transfer of nuclear weapons. We all remember how Lukashenka loudly and openly threatened Poland and Lithuania with the use of nuclear weapons, although, according to today's data, Russian nuclear weapons do not seem to be in Belarus. The general opinion of the people I talked to is that preparations have been made, but the transfer of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus has not started. For this reason, I am very interested in Belarus.

"Russia's defeat can be ensured by the change of Lukashenko's regime in Belarus"

- I believe that in the rather positional war that Russia and Ukraine are currently waging, when it is obvious that Russia cannot capture Ukraine, and Ukraine, unfortunately, is unable to dislodge Russian troops from the occupied territories, Russia's defeat can be ensured by the change of Lukashenko's regime in Belarus.

We realize that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was planned as the first step of a "cascading" aggression towards Europe. And I think this is clear to everyone in Europe.

If Russia invades Ukraine or breaks through the Ukrainian front, destroys this Ukrainian "dam", then hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Russian army will move into Europe. This is absolutely clear to everyone. None of the European politicians have any illusions that, having captured Ukraine, Russia will demobilize the army, and all these 400 or 600 thousand Russian soldiers will go back home and live peacefully with their families. That those same soldiers will go further into Eastern Europe, I think, is pretty obvious.

The war in Ukraine was intended as the first step in a "cascading" aggression, but it turned out to be a bone in Putin's throat. And he cannot capture Ukraine in the end - neither through the "Anschluss" of 2014, nor through the "blitzkrieg" of 2022, nor through the surrender he hoped for with the help of Trump.

It seems to me that if in this situation Russia lost control over Belarus, it would mean losing the war. Having lost Belarus as a bridgehead, Putin can neither advance on Europe nor threaten Europe. In this case, Europe is completely safe, and Putin, accordingly, loses his entire foreign policy battle for the capture of Europe.

- There is an opinion that changes are impossible in Belarus until there are changes in Russia. That is, if the government changes in Belarus, the next day there will be Russian tanks there. You put the question somewhat differently. How realistic do you think changes in Belarus are without large-scale changes in Russia itself?

- It is not obvious that this opinion is correct. It may be true in the sense that if changes happen in Russia, they will happen in Belarus as well. This is probably true. But practice shows that the destruction of an empire does not necessarily begin in the center, but very often on the outskirts of imperial possessions.

And if we, for example, look at the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, we will see that the centrifugal movement began, for example, in the Baltic States, which were not the largest territorial part of the Soviet Union.

- To this we can say that at that time the empire was already somewhat weakened, although they tried to hold it together with the help of Soviet troops - there was the storming of the TV tower in Vilnius, other events on the outskirts of the former Soviet Union. What kind of weakening of Russia is necessary for change to happen in Belarus?

- Let's still reflect on the theme of "clay colossi". That's the problem with revolutions and empires. They all seem insanely strong until the day they suddenly turn out to be a house of cards that collapses. And then everyone says in hindsight: yes, the empire collapsed, we saw it, look - this was wrong, that was wrong.

There is no reason to believe that Putin's regime is stable. It was stable before the big war, certainly. But in 2022, the big war is already starting - it's not the seizure of unarmed Crimea in 24 hours, because the Russian army was already standing there and the Ukrainian army wasn't. And it is not even the war for Donbass, which, by the way, has been going on since 2014, and so far Donbass has not been completely captured by Russia.

This is probably the most serious evidence that Russia is not as strong a state as it tries to show itself to be and is feared to be, because it is a country with nuclear weapons. And it would seem that no one wants to mess with nuclear weapons.

The regime in Russia is stable, like all such regimes, until some time. And it can collapse in 24 hours.

Another thing - and I will emphasize this - I do not believe that Russia is Putin's dictatorship. Unlike Belarus, where Lukashenko's dictatorship is obvious. I believe that in Russia the FSB as a department, as an institution, is in power. And, of course, these people are not going to give up power, regardless of whether Putin dies tomorrow. There is a more serious problem in this.

If Lukashenko is overthrown or Lukashenko dies and some democratic forces come to power in Belarus, Russia can do the same thing it did in Ukraine - start a war against Belarus. But we see that it does not work well to fight. Destroying - it works, killing people - it works. But it is not at all obvious that an open invasion, open occupation of Belarus by Russia would be a worse scenario than the strangulation with the help of Lukashenko, which Russia is carrying out in Belarus now.

Historically, I think, it is already clear that in the next collapse of the Russian Empire, Belarus, of course, will turn out to be an independent democratic state. Moreover, it will be a state that looks towards Europe, that will join the EU and NATO.

"Natallia Radzina surprised me"

- I saw that there are Belarusians (there are actually a lot of them) who believe that Belarus should fight for its independence. That this independence will consist in the orientation of Belarus towards Europe, towards EU membership.

That at the military-political level Belarus will have to join NATO in order to ensure its security. In fact, this is actually the reason why Ukraine has found itself in a situation where it has become vulnerable. After all, if the Ukrainians had carried out the necessary economic reforms in time, had broken away from the commonwealth with Russia, had been able to join the EU and NATO in time, there would have been no aggression on the part of Russia.

Because aggression on the part of Russia occurs only against those countries that have not had time to join NATO. Georgia in 2008, Moldova, which has been in a difficult situation since Yeltsin's time because Russian troops were introduced there without the consent of the Moldovan side. And they are still there. And Belarus, which is really controlled and really occupied by the Russian Federation. And now Ukraine. That is, all those countries that have managed to join NATO, at the moment must think about their security, but within the whole structure of the Alliance.

We know the answer to the question of what is needed for a country to preserve its integrity, independence and economic prosperity. The recipe for this disease is now known - it is the EU and NATO. This, in fact, is what the new Belarusian leadership should strive for.

It is very important to understand who those people are who claim to lead the opposition movement, dissident movement, revolutionary movement in Belarus, and what their plans are. And it is precisely in this respect that Natallia Radzina surprised me. I realized that there are politicians in Belarus who stand on the pro-Western point of view. Because from the outside, living in America, it's very good to think that Belarus should join NATO, join the EU, so that Belarusians would throw Lukashenko out. And then everything will be fine in Belarus.

When it turns out that quite well-known Belarusian politicians also stand on the same position, then, you must agree, my theoretical assumptions acquire some practical sense. I should add that at some point I flew to Vilnius to meet with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. And it seemed to me that she did not adhere to these positions. And I concluded for myself that it would be wrong to rely on Tihanovska in this sense. But Radzina fully coincided with my positions.

I didn't see Tikhanovskaya's rigidity with regard to Lukashenko's dictatorship, rigidity with regard to the people who are Lukashenko's long-term associates, who together with him built up the criminal regime that was created in Belarus.

I didn't see there the orientation towards the European Union and NATO in the sense of readiness to insist on it and fight. Probably, everyone will say who is against the European Union. It is, after all, a rather obvious and favorable scheme of coexistence in Europe for small states. But NATO is a serious political issue. And indeed, not all politicians in one state or another support the idea of joining NATO, because it means an open declaration of an anti-Russian political position.

As long as Finland and Sweden did not join NATO, it was possible to say that these countries were neutral. But as soon as the Finns and Swedes saw what it threatens, even they hurried to jump into NATO. And now even Austria is thinking about it.

This is a telling point. If a politician believes that his country should be a part of NATO, it means that he takes a strictly pro-Western position.