Belarus and Ukraine in the post-Soviet period – two different models of organization and positioning of the state

Abstract

After the disappearance of the USSR, Belarus and Ukraine have mostly different models of state organization at the domestic level: Belarus opted for state capitalism with a social image, close to the neo-Keynesian concept with elements of socialism-social justice. Ukraine had a number of changes in that direction, but after the February coup in 2014, it fully accepted the neoliberal model, which led to additional stratification of the population, pauperization and a serious economic crisis. In the geopolitical direction, Belarus has always been firmly connected with Russia and the integration processes in the post-Soviet space led by Moscow. Ukraine is internally divided on that issue, so it had a moderated participation in the integration processes in the post-Soviet space. However, after February 2014 and the conflicts that followed, Ukraine turned to the western centers of power. Belarus has very little opposition in the electorate to the existing geopolitical and pro-Russian identity issue, while Ukraine remains a divided country on a number of major issues. Western centers of power, and especially Atlanticist ones, generally support every form of distance from Russia and pro-Russian identity that exists among the population and elite in Ukraine and that appears on the border in Belarus.
In Ukraine, until February 2014, pluralism influenced them to channel themselves through elections for the institutions of the system of differences of identity and interests of the regions, so the pro-Russian and Western Ukrainian options changed in power. Since 2014, the secession of Crimea, the secession of Donetsk and Lugansk, the western Ukrainian option has an advantage. Since then, the government in Kiev has been threatening the identity survival of the pro-Russian part of the population of Ukraine, the majority in the Southeast, in an authoritarian and undemocratic way. Official relations between Ukraine and Russia are tense.