AP Explains: Why revolt in Belarus is different from Ukraine

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — A former Soviet republic on the fault line between Russia and Europe is boiling with revolt this summer. Sounds familiar — but Belarus 2020 isn’t Ukraine 2014, and that’s why it’s hard to predict what will happen next.

Here is a look at what’s different this time, and why it matters:

LEADERLESS RESISTANCE

The uprising in Belarus erupted last week in a democratic vacuum, in a country where challengers to President Alexander Lukashenko are jailed or exiled and where there is no experienced parliamentary opposition.

So those at the forefront of Minsk protest marches have been ordinary Belarusians, instead of established political leaders like those who helped galvanize crowds and funding for Ukraine’s 2014 protest movement, centered around the Maidan independence square in Kyiv.

In Belarus, “the absence of bright leaders undoubtedly weakens the protests ... Leaders bring awareness,” independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said.

So Belarusian protesters formed a new Advisory Council this week to try to “offer the street a clear plan and agenda,” he said.

However, opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova argues that the mass protests this month in Minsk, which came together in decentralized clusters via messaging app Telegram, show that Belarusians no longer need a vertical hierarchy telling them what to do.

And a leaderless protest has one key advantage, she said: “It cannot be beheaded.”

ORDERLY, AND OK WITH RUSSIA

When unprecedented crowds of 200,000 people marched through the tidy, broad avenues of Minsk on Sunday, they came to a halt at red traffic lights, waiting obediently until they turned green.

In Ukraine, by contrast, “protesters burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails,” said Syarzhuk Chyslau, leader of...