> This is not a good choice in dictatorships as the population has no choice who to vote for.

The population voted for the opposition candidate, took to the streets when the results were rigged, but had no leaders willing to escalate the confrontation when the state had its pants down. The dictator has buckled his pants and has gradually reduced the opposition to posting memes in Telegram chats. And even this activity is no longer safe.

> but had no leaders willing to escalate the confrontation when the state had its pants down

Are we talking about military leaders who support the current dictator? What could the leaders of the opposition have done to escalate the confrontation further?

> had no leaders Leaders were either killed or forced into exile.

>but the problem is that such sanctions hurt the population the most.

This sort of coexistence has been attempted and patently failed.

It's their population, not ours. An important distinction.

We (rest of the world, but particularly Europe) need to get stricter.

What does that achieve, though?

Pressure to stop pulling this kind of bs if they want to remain a viable economy in Europe.

Honestly, I wish the next step would be for NATO to step in and restore the country to a legitimate government. Between this, Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine, China, Israel, the world has been way too conivent with the destruction of democracy.

Sanctions only achieve that if they punish the illegitimate government (hopefully without punishing the rest of the population). Being tough for the sake of being tough without having a clear model for what leverage you’re getting is just political posturing.

Belarus is in military alliance with Russia (Collective Security Treaty Organization). Any military action against Belarus will be met with Russian army defending its territory.

Also I think that the more sanctions are put from West to Belarus, the closer it gets to become another Russia state. I'm not sure if that's the outcome West wants to see.

And military action from Belarus against an EU civilian aircraft should be met with what?

Belarus was within its bounds. They did not shoot aircraft, they released aircraft and all EU citizens shortly afterwards, they have legal reasons to do so (which was likely fabricated, but one can't prove that). It's a bad accident, but it's not a war.

I’m appalled. Just because they didn’t kill anyone (yet, as one passenger is on their way to the firing squad) this should be fine?

This is plain and simple hijacking of an international flight and not “within bounds” at all. Laws are to be followed in principle, not just technical merit, these are not computer games.

Are you seriously describing this as a "bad accident"?

Belarus airspace - Belarus rules. If EU civilian aircrafts doesn't like it they are free not to enter that airspace.

>if they want to remain a viable economy in Europe.

About half of Belarus's trade is with Russia. All this would accomplish is making it 90%+ and deepen ties with Russia. Might as well suggest having Russia annex Belarus as a response to the situation.

> if they want to remain a viable economy

What a country wants is not in general what those in power want.

Yeah, you have such a great legacy when defending democracy all over the world even in cases where you were absolutely dominant military power that this one would be walk in a park - Russia would just stand down, peacefully looking NATO invading its ally on its doorstep. Fortunately no-one in NATO has such illusions.

I know what I will write will sound like I don’t have any empathy but… hitting population hard, to the starvation even, will make them go after Lukashenko. This is why communism in Poland was defeated by the workers. They had no bread so they had to rise. Again, I would like to underline that this is not a solution that I support but history showed us this is how u make a revolution and real change

Maybe decades ago, but there was no uprising in North Korea despite famines and food rationing.