Mark Leonard's World In 30 Minutes

In 2020 Belarus made headlines when protests erupted in the aftermath of a fraught presidential election. Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for over 26 years, still clings to power today and has unleashed a crackdown on the protests and protesters with a level of brutality unseen in Europe for decades. Vessela Tcherneva, ECFR deputy director takes over the podcast this week to examine the subject of Belarus further. How did we actually get here? And what kind of implications do the developments in Belarus have for the wider neighbourhood and Europe? Andrew Wilson, ECFR senior policy fellow, Nicu Popescu, director of the ECFR Wider Europe Programme as well as Pavel Slunkin, ECFR visiting fellow from Belarus, discuss these questions.Further reading: https://ecfr.eu/topic/belarus/ This podcast was recorded on 3 March 2021.Bookshelf:•“Belarus – the last European dictatorship?” by Andrew Wilson • “American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the marriage of money and power” by Andrea Bernstein •“Atl