Continued Protests in Belarus – week 7

Yesterday was the 50th day of protests. Through various twitter accounts one can see all the protests throughout the country. They are widespread and the protesters are clearly dawn from all parts of society and all age groups. Lots of large protests in small towns. News reports are saying “about” 100,000 protesters in Minsk and protests in nine other cities. The videos I am seeing are showing protests in some pretty small towns, so not sure where that count comes from. It was clear from the videos that there are tens of thousand of protesters in Minsk, but it may not have been a hundred thousand. The weather was not great this weekend. Another reported 350 or so people detained or arrested on Sunday.

Lukashenko has taken the oath of office for his new term, so it appears that both sides have dug in.

Now, what I have never done is any systematic analysis of protests. So, I do not know if extended protests have a higher chance of success or a lower chance of success as they continue. The successful Euromaiden protests in Ukraine in 2013/2014 lasted for three months.  The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests lasted for 7 weeks until they were abruptly ended by tanks. How long can this continue with a 100,000 protesters and several hundred detained each week?

 

P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from a week ago. She was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews

 

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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