President Alexander Lukashenko has never been very well liked by the current Russian leadership.  We hear the occasional rumors that Vladimir Putin cannot stand having to spend time with the permanent president of Belarus, while Dmitry Medvedev has had problems with him going all the way back to some early Gazprom price disputes.  Yet for many years, Lukashenko has been a useful if unreliable plant for Russian interests on its periphery, and the retrograde political system established in the country is very much a reflection of his shrewd opportunism.

However, that all appears to be changing.  Russia is feeling much more secure and influential in its neighborhood, with Georgia invaded and partially annexed without consequence, with Ukraine’s chaotic experiment with democracy toppled, and a comfortable “reset” with both the United States and Europe.  The relative importance of Lukashenko’s autocratic stability has been rapidly declining, and the usual games of playing Washington off Moscow off Brussels isn’t working any more.  In other words, losing Lukashenko may no longer be as much as a sacrifice as it used to be.

Though the tension has been building for some time, the latest dust-up between Lukashenko and Medvedev appears to go beyond the pale of past scoldings.