Most people are not stupid, they understand the situation. Also most of the people do not believe Lukashenko's narratives any more. At this point is not about him convincing his people to believe him, it's about using force to remove those who are brave enough to fight him - this is actually what this kidnapping was about.

What would the alternative be? Do nothing?

Spend money on a BBC Belarusian comedy channel... Hehe..

Broadcast from neighbouring countries.

It's probably not very rational, but it would be fun :)

There's already a BBC News Russian service: https://www.bbc.com/russian / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_News_Russian

Sanction the elite

They are already sanctioned.

This is how sanctions usually work. The leaders of the country should be representing interests of the people.

> This is only going to help Lukashenko's narrative that the West is plotting against Belarus.

This narrative only works short-term. Sooner or later people realize it is not what is happening no matter how much propaganda is being produced.

I live in Russia, the situation here is not as bad as Belarus (yet), but has similarities nontheless. The sad thing is that almost 50% of the population still believes Putin, and the reason is propaganda, the main point of propaganda - that Russia is a fortress surrounded by enemies, anything bad you hear about the government is foreign agents trying to descredit him.

Lukashenko already has much less than 50% support of the ppl and he has lost his last elections. But he holds the power by force. What do you want Belorussians to do, go and die fighting the police?

> What do you want Belorussians to do, go and die fighting the police?

I mean it sucks like hell, but this is how most countries (and most oppressed minority groups within most countries) did it. Do you think it would be better if the EU took the US approach and rolled in their own armies? That doesn't have a good record of working either.

No, I don't want any foreign army in the Belarus obviously. My point is that Lukashenko already lost support of majority of Belorussians, so making life worse for common people does nothing except it produces unnecessary misery.

I agree that taking down the government by force is probably the only option left now for them. Belorussians are people who already were unfortunate enough to be born in post soviet dictatorship, yet a lot of overly privileged people in USA and EU have this sentiment that being ruled by Luka is fault of the people, completely ignoring the circumstances like Belarus being in the sphere of influence of Russia.

I mean all westerners have to do to shape the government is to attend elections, but it's not the same in dictatorships. The expectation that young people have to die fighting the regime instead of enjoying their youth like people in the West is very unfair.