Why’d Russia Warn About The West’s Color Revolution Plans In Belarus Four Years In Advance?

The timing of SVR’s warning about the West’s, and especially Poland’s and the US’, “NGO”-led Color Revolution plans in Belarus during its 2030 presidential elections might signal Russia’s concern that President Alexander Lukashenko is moving too fast in his détente with them due to naiveté.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned in earlier this week that a collection of Western countries, Poland and the US importantly among them, is plotting to once again orchestrate an “NGO”-led Color Revolution along the lines of 2020’s one during Belarus’ next presidential elections in 2030. Poland’s and the US’ inclusion is significant since the US has entered into a fast-moving rapprochement with Belarus under Trump 2.0 and is thought to also be mediating secret Polish-Belarusian talks too.

In late January, the Belarusian Foreign Minister shared a radically changed perception of Poland that was blatantly at odds with Russia’s, which was analyzed here at the time. The preceding hyperlinked analysis also cites three background briefings about the emerging Belarusian-US détente. It was assessed that the US might be cleverly trying to divide-and-rule Belarus and Russia in order to break up their Union State. The US also wants Belarus to replace supposed Russian vassalage with actual Polish vassalage.

Between that analysis and SVR’s warning, former Belarusian opposition figure Roman Protasevich (who was arrested after a forced Ryanair landing in May 2021 as his plane was flying over Belarus and who President Alexander Lukashenko since claimed was always a KGB agent), shared some intel on this plot. The gist is that the West’s rapprochement with Belarus is a ruse for facilitating its geopolitical pivot away from Russia during the 2030 presidential election in which Lukashenko earlier said that he won’t run.

This will be advanced through five interconnected means:

1. The return of EU Ambassadors will enable them to directly pressure policymaking groups;

2. The creation of a pro-EU lobby is among the goals that the aforesaid means will advance;

3. The same goes for getting the government to allow fugitive “opposition” members to safely return;

4. The preceding two groups will then cultivate the 2030 generation under cover of “NGO” work;

5. And they’ll all try to engineer an identity conflict between Belarusians and Russians before the vote.

If their preferred candidate doesn’t win, then this network will initiate another Color Revolution.

It’s one thing for Protasevich to warn about this scenario and another entirely for SVR to do so, which has a wider array of intel at its hands and whose motives are to inform the friendly Belarusian society about this plot in advance so that it can prepare itself to resist these forthcoming influences upon them. Moreover, the five interconnected means for pivoting Belarus away from Russia to the West in 2030 depend largely on what Lukashenko decides to do, which itself depends on the West’s incentives.

Whatever they offered him, it already got him to go from warning in January 2025 that “Poland pursues the most aggressive and bad policy against Belarus” to his Foreign Minister describing it a year later as “a genuine regional leader” that “pursues a pragmatic policy”. Even if he refuses a speculative quid pro quo of sanctions relief and political normalization for requesting the removal of Russia’s Oreshniks and nukes, he might still naively facilitate the geopolitical pivot sequence that Protasevich warned about in detail.

The timing of SVR’s warning about the West’s, and especially Poland’s and the US’, “NGO”-led Color Revolution plans in Belarus during its 2030 presidential elections might therefore also signal Russia’s concern that Lukashenko is moving too fast in his détente with them due to naiveté. They backstabbed him once in summer 2020 when he was on the brink of pivoting away from Russia to the West so they might try to “finish the job” in 2030 if he isn’t careful and thus ruin his legacy as a multipolar pioneer.