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Belarus is among the most likely places where a war could break out between Russia and the West. News from Belarus has flashed in and out of headlines in the past year. When a wave of protest washed over the country in the summer of 2020, it was a major story. The diversion of an airplane traveling between two E.U. member states, followed by the kidnapping of a Belarusian opposition journalist and his (Russian) girlfriend from this plane, captured the worlds attention for more than a week. Otherwise, this country of almost ten million people tends to get ignored, which is unfortunate. The future of Belarus poses urgent and acutely unpredictable questions for the entire region. Bearing this in mind, Western policymakers should do what they can to articulate a viable policy toward Belarus before the next round of crises comes. They can begin this difficult job by reviewing the relationship between Belarus and Ukraine.

Compared to Belarus, Ukraine is much bigger in territory and population. It has a more developed national sensibility: a commonly spoken Ukrainian language, a distinctively Ukrainian culture, and a strong sense of its own historical accomplishments and grievances. Ukraines post-Soviet political trajectory was, from the beginning, more pluralistic and more chaotic than that of Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been a dictator close to Moscow for decades, while Ukraine has vacillated in its politics and its geopolitics. In 2008, NATO stated that, one day, Ukraine and Georgia would become members. No such promise has ever been extended to Belarus, an isolated country without a visible diaspora and without much to offer economically. Belarus is typically regarded as a county in Russias orbit, whereas Ukraine, ever since its Orange Revolution of 2004, has been more of a wild card.

Despite these differences, Belarus and Ukraine present similar policy challenges to the West. A former Soviet socialist republic, Belarus (like Ukraine) was a part of the Eastern Partnership program, established by the European Union in 2009. Policymakers in Europe and the United States the West for short believe that both Belarus and Ukraine should determine their own relationships to Europe. These leaders also champion the machinery of reform in Belarus, preferring it for obvious reasons to the agonies of authoritarian rule. They would like to see civil society prosper and serve as the precursor to democratic renewal. A similar Western preference was palpable for Ukraine when protestors thronged Kyivs Maidan Square in opposition to Viktor Yanukovich. The West emphasizes sovereignty and hopes for democracy. Hence a joint U.S. and E.U. policy of punishing Russia for violations of state sovereignty and, at the same time, of encouraging a regional transition to democracy, which is likely to entail Euro-Atlantic integration, an explicit aim of the American and E.U. Ukraine policy.

The example of Ukraine over the past 10 or so years should inform Western policy toward Belarus. In Ukraine, there has been a stark difference between the stated aspirations of Western policy and the realities on the ground. U.S. and European policy has often been more aspirational than effective, validating the principle that modest goals successfully accomplished are preferable to grandiose goals that float free from reality. Furthermore, if Western policymakers were to apply their past experiences in Ukraine to Belarus, they are likely to overlook two important factors: 1) Belaruss vertical integration and its lack of democratic experience, which bodes ill for whatever political chapter will follow Lukashenkos reign; and 2) the high degree of political and military connection between Belarus and Russia. The loftier and more immediate the policy goals are regarding Belarus, the more they are likely to mislead its opposition movement into presuming a degree of support and commitment that American and European states will be unwilling to deliver.

***

Circa 2014, Western policy on Ukraine rested on three pillars. One was the return of Crimea to Ukraine, reversing Russian annexation. Another was the elimination of a Russian military presence in Donbas. A political process was supposed to follow, restoring Donbas to the Ukrainian body politic through free and fair elections. A third pillar was the reform of Ukraine itself, a more nebulous objective than the other two pillars. Ukraine had been an oligarchic democracy since 1991, and Yanukovich was elected president in 2013, when his decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union sparked protests that culminated in his fleeing Ukraine for Russia. After Yanukovichs exit, the reform of Ukraine meant a reduction in corruption, the minimization of oligarch rule, and the progress of civil society, building upon the participatory democracy that had flowed from social media and from the street protests of 2013 and early 2014. The eventual benefit of such reform would be Euro-Atlantic integration, an embedding of Ukraine in some European and trans-Atlantic institutional structures.

European and U.S. policy instruments were also threefold. Most prominent were the U.S. and E.U. sanctions on Russia, which were tied to the annexation of Crimea and eventually to the Minsk diplomatic process. Hammered out in 2014 and 2015, this process was intended to expedite a Russian withdrawal and to initiate the political procedures through which Donbas could be reintegrated into Ukraine. An additional policy move was to enhance military cooperation between Ukraine and the West. NATO committed itself to the training of Ukrainian troops; Washington provided non-lethal military aid and, after a few years of back and forth, the Trump administration decided to furnish Ukraine with lethal military assistance. As for reform, the West gave Kyiv both money and advice. The foundations of partnership were supposed to incentivize further reforms in Ukraine, a virtuous circle. In the long run, NATO and E.U. membership might be the fruits of such incremental reforms.

The balance sheet for these policy objectives is not especially encouraging. Crimea has receded since 2014 as an active area of disagreement among Russia, Europe, and the United States. The annexation has by no means been recognized, nor is it ever likely to be. At the same time, it does not figure prominently in the public statements of Western politicians, from Boris Johnson to Angela Merkel to Joe Biden. Donbas remains in Russian hands. The Minsk diplomatic process has stalled completely. The United States and the European Union have conceded nothing, and its Minsk-related sanctions have been scrupulously maintained, but not one of the Western aims for Minsk has been realized. The Russian military shows no signs of leaving the area, and the prospect of elections that would rejoin Donetsk and Luhansk to Ukraine is impossibly distant at the moment. France and Germany, the prime movers of Minsk diplomacy for the West, have ceased investing political capital in the issues that had made Minsk necessary in the first place. Meanwhile, Belarus did not appear to be on the agenda of the Biden-Merkel talks in Washington, D.C.

Political reform in Ukraine is much harder to evaluate. It admits no obvious metric. The glass is half full in the sense that Ukraine has survived under adverse circumstances. It has not sued for peace with Russia. It has not gone under economically, and it has remained pluralistic and basically hospitable to civil society. The glass is half empty for several reasons. Corruption has not been curtailed. Oligarchs play the same outsized role in the Ukrainian political economy that they did under Yanukovich; Petro Poroshenko, Ukraines first president after Maidan, was himself an oligarch; and Volodymr Zelensky, who followed Poroshenko, has been unable to diminish the power of oligarchs. Rule of law is tenuous: Ukraines judiciary is effectively a branch of executive power. Nor is Zelenskys government especially popular. Ukraines Euro-Atlantic integration is a misleading phrase in 2021. It overestimates the prospects for a rent-seeking, mostly unreformed, government, and it underestimates Russias capacity to shape Ukraines future.

U.S. and E.U. policy has not failed. It has done much to keep Ukraine alive as an independent country. It may boast of considerable success in the future. But neither has it succeeded. Seven years out, it has fallen conspicuously short. Western sanctions and military aid may have deterred Russia from either annexing or dominating a greater swath of Ukrainian territory. That is a hypothetical worth debating. They have so far not achieved the goals that were set in 2014. It is doubtful that they will ever do so, while the high hopes of the Maidan Revolution have slowly fizzled. In Western policy, a truly reformed Ukraine is a noble idea. It is nevertheless a low priority, so low in fact that the provision of Western military assistance has never been conditioned on genuine reform in Kyiv, which, given the state of Ukrainian politics in 2021, is a missed opportunity. Reasonable in theory, the U.S. and European Ukraine policy has done a poor job of marrying words and deeds.

***

U.S. and European policy on Belarus should assimilate four lessons from the Ukrainian precedent. But first a word about the inner dynamics of such policy. As with Russia, the West is not a monolith vis-a-vis Belarus. The Baltic republics and Poland seem committed if only rhetorically to regime change in Belarus. Southern Europe does not have a pronounced opinion on what to do. France and Germany are interested in reviving diplomatic contact with Russia, and, at the same time, they are concerned about the prospects for democracy and human rights in Belarus. So too is the United States. Throughout Europe and in the United States, the Belarusian opposition movement is held in high esteem. The trans-Atlantic discrepancies on Belarus are too modest for Vladimir Putin to exploit. The revival of U.S.-European relations under the Biden administration suggests that a unified policy on Belarus is not just possible but probable. The key will be a high degree of coordination between Berlin and Washington.

Lesson Number One

Speak softly but carry a big stick: Teddy Roosevelts famous aphorism is evergreen. In Ukraine, the sweeping expectations that have been so often articulated have undermined Western policy. They expose too great a disparity between intention and will, or between hope and capacity. That disparity over time offers a punishing commentary on the actual Western commitment to Ukraine. Since America and the European Union cannot bring democracy to Belarus, they should not promise democracy. One might reference Syria policy here as well. No matter how many times the words Assad must go were voiced, they did not guarantee the departure of Bashar al Assad or the arrival of Syrian democracy. Europe and the United States can confront Lukashenko on specific issues, such as his horrendous hijacking of the flight from Athens to Vilnius. Yet, Western rhetoric should be sober and free from any confusion of the normative with the possible: Democracy in Belarus is, at the very least, a massive undertaking. A Libya-style removal of the tyrant would have to be followed by the sustained commitment of time and resources to the reconstruction of Belarus or, more precisely, to the construction of a Belarusian democracy. For the time being, limited influence on internal Belarusian affairs should be seen for what it is limited influence. Because their influence is limited, American and European deeds should be bolder than their words.

Lesson Number Two

Be honest about the scope of Russian military involvement. Ukraine and Belarus are integral to Russias national security. Russias hard line on Ukraine should have been anticipated in 2013, and, overall, the Russian military calculus is extremely difficult to redirect from the outside. It would take a formidable array of coercive measures to get Russia to change gears and, in Ukraine, to accept a Ukrainian Crimea and Euro-Atlantic integration at the same time, not to mention NATO membership for Ukraine. The application of these measures would risk escalation, and quite possibly war, before Russia would consider backing down. This logic applies, if anything, more directly to Belarus. Belarus is already honeycombed with the Russian military. Lukashenkos fall, provided the Kremlin has not engineered it, would generate a tightening of the military connection between Russia and Belarus. Russia will not tolerate a government in Belarus that appears pro-Western, even if it is sometimes said that the opposition movement in Belarus eschews geopolitics and tries not to position itself as anti-Russian. Perhaps the opposition movement in Belarus can thread the needle and separate domestic politics from geopolitics in search of a Belarusian democracy that does not challenge Russias suzerainty. Most likely it cannot, and the more American and European leaders actively encourage an opposition movement in Belarus, the less likely it is that this movement can prevail. No Western promise of democracy in Belarus can skirt a military dynamic that gives Moscow considerable sway over the political future of Belarus. Nor can the United States and European Union pretend that they are neutral bystanders in the region, a kind of well-intentioned transnational non-governmental organization. The West is very much enmeshed in the geopolitical destiny of Belarus.

Lesson Number Three

Jaw-jaw is better than war-war. The relationship between the West and Russia is too weak to sustain a serious diplomatic conversation about Belarus. There is too little trust, and the respective interests too strenuously clash. Russian leaders and Western leaders also speak two irreconcilably different languages when it comes to international affairs. Their mutual incomprehension is deep. That said, where any consultation on Belarus is possible, it should be pursued. In Ukraine, the diplomatic efforts of Russia, the European Union, and the United States, which were thrown into disarray when Yanukovich ran for his life in February 2014, were too little too late. They were undone as much by rapid-fire circumstances as by anything else. Were this situation to repeat itself over Belarus, the stakes would be higher. Minsk is 115 miles from Vilnius, with Kaliningrad, a province of Russia, tucked behind Poland and Lithuania. Russia, Belarus, and two NATO member states all occupy a small and potentially combustible quadrant of territory. France and Germany were right to push for talks with the Kremlin after the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva, though they did so in a way that backfired. Not talking achieves nothing, even if talking may yield only most modest gains in understanding and cooperation, and, as far as Lukashenkos rule is concerned, the clock is certainly ticking.

Lesson Number Four

The long game. The West has done something remarkable in Belarus. Without even trying, it has made a remarkable display of its soft power. In the face of terrible oppression, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians have challenged Lukashenkos tyranny. Their courage and vision derive, in part, from what has been accomplished in the neighboring Baltic states, which were once as Soviet as Belarus was. Freedom of both speech and assembly are European goods that many in Belarus would like to see imported, no less than the rule of law and Western prosperity. It may take decades for this to come to pass, if Belarus ever becomes a democracy. For it to come to pass, the United States and the European Union should invest more in people than in transformative outcomes which it cannot deliver. Policies that make it easier for Belarusians to travel and study in the European Union should be encouraged. Gradual changes in political sensibility, whereby the habits of political liberty are internalized, should be advanced. Tempting as it is to build a wall around Lukashenkos regime, and to consign it to being Europes North Korea, Western policy should really do the opposite. Build a wall around Lukashenko himself. Yet, open Belarus, however one can, to the political currents that have already and unexpectedly been changing it.

Foreign policy thinking rests on history and, often enough, on pithy phrases extracted from the historical record. With China, we worry about falling into the Thucydides trap, retracing the fears and suspicions that drew Athens and Sparta into a terrible war. With Europe, cautionary remembrance circles around 1914 and the continents sleepwalking into war, or around 1939 and the risks of appeasement. With Russia, the analogies are usually derived from the Cold War, stemming from containment or dtente or the annus mirabilis of 1989. With Belarus, the past to be remembered and studied is right before our eyes. Call it the Ukraine trap. No tale of inevitable victory is etched into Western Ukraine policy from 2014 to the present. The worst-case scenarios have been avoided in Ukraine not because Russia has been coerced into backing down but because of the unspoken moderation of Western policy. Limitless rhetoric has been backed up by limited actions, in an instance more of strategic luck than of strategic patience. In Belarus, the worst-case scenarios should be avoided. It is hard to know whether the Wests core interests in Belarus involve the degree of Russian military influence (actual and possible) or the security of neighboring NATO member states. That will have to be worked out over time, and Russias military influence in Belarus is, at any rate, intertwined with NATOs security. Whatever the immediate security dilemmas, and however they evolve, they should not stand in the way of a decades-long project of discrediting authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe and of journeying toward a regional order based not on repression and violence but on the consent of the governed. The ultimate power of the West in Belarus as formidable as it is subtle and gradual happens to be the power of its example.

Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America and was most recently the author of The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy, published by Basic Books in April 2020. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the secretarys policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.

Image: President of Belarus

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Belarus and the Ukraine Trap - War on the Rocks

The widow of a wealthy British businessman killed in a hit and run in Ukraine as he celebrated his first wedding anniversary has denied organising his murder, an inquest heard.

Barry Pring, 47, suffered fatal injuries when he was hit by a vehicle using a stolen number plate while waiting for a taxi outside a restaurant in Kiev with his wife, Ganna Ziuzina, on 16 February 2008.

The IT consultant married Ziuzina, known as Anna, in January 2007 in a whirlwind romance after meeting online a few months earlier when she had registered with a website to find a husband.

Ziuzina, now known as Julianna Moore, was a trained primary school teacher but was working as a dancer.

Speaking on a video link from Spain, Moore, 42, who was 19 years younger than her husband, told the inquest in Bristol she had not organised his murder.

John McLinden QC, representing Moore, asked her: Did you pay anybody to kill Barry; did you give any consideration, whether sexual, or property or anything like that, to reward them for killing Barry?

She replied: No.

Fiona Elder, counsel to the inquest, asked Moore about two men her builder and a colleague that she had spoken to by phone around the time Pring was killed.

She asked the witness: Did you make any arrangement with either of these two men in relation to the incident that killed your husband?

Moore replied: No.

Asked whether she was motivated by greed to marry Pring and then kill him, Moore said: For me, my life would be much better with Barry than without him.

I dont know why anybody would suggest that I would like to kill him to get some money. I knew about the large mortgages he had. Whatever media was blowing that there was millions or whatever or inheritance, its not true.

I was quite aware of substantial mortgages he had. My life financially would be much more comfortable having Barry than not having him.

Moore suggested she would have been financially better off divorcing Pring, then having him killed and having to share his estate with his family.

She also denied accusations she had hypnotised Pring or that he was besotted with her and said she found the allegations hurtful.

Barry was a grown-up man, she said. He was very strong willed. He had his own ideas about life. He wasnt a man that could easily fall under the spell.

The inquest was taking place at Bristol Civil Justice Centre before Judge Paul Matthews. This is the second inquest to be held, after a ruling of unlawful killing in the first, in January 2017, was quashed.

Pring, who was originally from Devon, owned three properties in the London area and a flat in Kiev. He also owned a second flat jointly with Moore in Kiev.

His family became suspicious that his death may have been foul play because Moore was very cold towards him and not loving or caring.

They hired a private investigator in Ukraine who discovered the authorities had not investigated Prings death properly.

In earlier high court proceedings, the Pring family had accused Moore of murdering her husband for his money, though these claims were apparently later withdrawn, resulting in the family releasing a statement saying Moore had not murdered him.

Prings brother, Shaughan, 58, told the inquest he became suspicious after speaking to his brothers best friend, Peter Clifford.

On that night my initial concern was for Ms Moore, Pring said. I had a gut feeling something didnt sit right just the way Ms Moore informed me of Barrys death.

It was very calm, very callous, there was no emotion, it was cold. I was prepared to come to Ukraine right away because my concern was for her. Afterwards I had a gut feeling things werent right.

Mr Clifford said it was possible my brother may have been murdered for his assets and went through a list of reasons why.

The hearing continues.

Read more here:
Widow denies organising murder of her British husband in Ukraine hit and run - The Guardian

KHARKIV, Ukraine, July 16 (Reuters) - For 97-year-old Leonid Stanislavskyi, a Ukrainian who has been playing amateur tennis for over half a century, it is next to impossible to find a worthy adversary in his age group.

That has not stopped him from participating in the world and European championships for seniors and outplaying younger competitors, although he is not moving around the court as fast as he used to.

Stanislavskyi was 30 when his colleague, then a Soviet champion in gymnastics, introduced him to tennis. Since then, he has trained three times a week in his hometown of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

"It is an elegant type of sport. It is good physical exercise. It is a beautiful game. And there is one more thing about tennis you can play no matter what age you are," he told Reuters.

A Guinness World Record holder as the world's oldest tennis player, Stanislavskyi has been training hard ahead of the 2021 Super-Seniors World Championship due to be held in October in Mallorca, Spain.

The world's oldest tennis player Ukrainian Leonid Stanislavskyi, 97, practices on court in Kharkiv, Ukraine July 7, 2021. REUTERS/Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy

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For the first time, the International Tennis Federation has introduced a 90-and-over age group in the 2021 tournament after Stanislavskyi sent a written request to the federation asking for the new category to be added.

"When I was 95 years old, I felt much better than now," said Stanislavskyi, who moves at his own pace trying to return every shot. "It is even hard to walk when you are 97 years old.

"People under 70 say: 'Thank goodness I lived another year.' People between 70 and 90 say: 'Thank goodness I lived another month.' I count every day and say: 'Thank God I lived another day.'"

Stanislavskyi said the secret to his longevity was a mixture of good genes and regular sport.

He starts each morning with gymnastics and a series of push-ups and pull-ups. Besides tennis, Stanislavskyi is a passionate fan of swimming and skiing and dreams of making a parachute jump.

He says his ultimate goal is to live to 100 years old and take on Roger Federer.

Editing by Mike Collett-White

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World's oldest tennis player from Ukraine - 97 and still in the game - Reuters

The tears were flowing as Liudmila Sheremet made her way down the avenue. She had to get to work, she told herself. Not to tune in to her sons morning show and greet him in the way she usually did, from hundreds of miles away in Minsk with a smile, a wave and a hi, son, or a why are you in that scruffy T-shirt?No, to get to her desk, open her computer, and to hope what her granddaughter had just told her was an awful mistake.

A short while earlier, at 7.40am on 20 July 2016, her son, the journalist Pavel Sheremet, had begun his own commute. He sat in the drivers seat of the red Subaru he shared with his partner, and began the short journey to Radio Vesti across town in central Kiev. It would be touch and go whether hed get there in time for the 8am start, but his colleagues had become used to his late arrivals. This time, however, he would never make it, thwarted by a remote explosive device detonated from under his seat. He died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.

Five years on Tuesday marks the tragic anniversary Sheremets assassination continues to throw up more questions than answers. A murky Ukrainian investigation has belatedly produced five suspects, but even the president is unsure the evidence proves their guilt. If they are the hitmen, as his government claims, there is no clear answer as to who could have procured them. And there is no consolidated opinion about what the motive might have been.

Liudmila Sheremet says there isnt a minute when she doesnt think about her son. Not about the ongoing court case that isnt in the slightest bit interesting, she claims but what he would have made of it all.

There are many parallels with the murder of Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin in 2015. Then and now, the hit men have been identified, but key evidence like CCTV footage went missing, and we are no closer to knowing who did it

Ekaterina Sergatskova, journalist and close friend of Sheremet

I think the one thing hed be worried about is innocent people suffering, she says. Hed be concerned that officials arent looking to pin the blame on scapegoats.

Enemies every way you look

Pavel Sheremet grew up in Minsk, Belarus, with an unusual sense of justice. He was afraid of nothing, and told everyone the truth "whether they liked it or not. Even teachers would be at the receiving end of his lectures: especially when one decided to raise the marks of classmates after their parents had helped with school repairs. After school, Pavel studied banking, but money counting was never his thing, and so he became a journalist.

Pavels interest for everything made him a star of Belarusian journalism, latterly as a foreign correspondent for the Russian state broadcaster ORT. It was in this capacity that he made his first international headlines, jailed in 1997 by the fledgling dictator Alexander Lukashenko, after filing a report on smuggling at the Lithuanian-Belarus border. The famous dispatch saw him demonstrate gaps in the border by literally stepping across them. He was convicted for illegal border crossing.

Sheremet would only be freed after an extraordinary intervention by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who unexpectedly denied his Belarusian counterpart an airspace corridor.

Free Sheremet first, was Yeltsins famous retort. Lukashenko eventually backed down and released Sheremet, setting up a lifetime of enmity and a sense of deja-vu when it came to stories involving airspace and the Belarusian-Lithuanian border.

Sheremet moved to Russia in 2000, where he would make a second home, and front a flagship weekly news programme on state TV. He would later describe this as a shameful period of his career, as, like many others in the system, he struggled between conscience and compromise with increasingly pro-Kremlin managers. In 2011, Sheremet relocated to Kiev, still working for Russian state TV, but increasingly disillusioned with it.

The impossibility of objective coverage on Russian TV following the 2014 revolution saw him switch completely to Ukrainian publications, and publicly denounce the Kremlins undeclared war with its Slavic neighbour. He was later granted Ukrainian citizenship.

His uncompromising reporting earned him the enmity of at least five presidents, and has made the investigation of his death a complicated maze with few easy answers. He was under surveillance by Moscow, Minsk and Kiev, friends and family say. Latterly, he complained he was being followed by what he believed were officers of the Ukrainian security services.

We thought he was safe enough in Kiev, but a friend later told me he seemed worried before his death, that he was carrying serious baggage, she said. She asked him what was up, and he said he was being watched.

The official version

Questions about the thoroughness of the official Ukrainian investigation into Sheremets death persisted from the start. Over a hundred hours of relevant video footage only appeared after journalists launched their own probe. A documentary film released ten months after his death revealed missed leads and unfathomable gaps in the official versions of police and security services.

Ukrainian interior minister Arsen Avakov tendered his resignation last week

(Reuters)

Ukrainian authorities have persisted with a theory that the assassination was carried out in Russian interests, and designed to destabilise Kiev. In December 2019 with newly elected president Volodymyr Zelensky in charge, interior ministry officials identified five suspects. All were nationalistic-leaning veterans of Ukraines undeclared war with Russia.

It remains unclear how veterans of the war with Russia might have been working in Moscows interests, and the evidence against them is not watertight. All insist on their innocence. At his annual press conference this year, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky seemed to suggest he shared the doubts, revealing he had been in correspondence with one of the suspects.

Ukraines interior minister Arsen Avakov would not remain in his job if it was discovered people had been illegally put on trial, Zelensky revealed. Last week, the longtime minister tendered his resignation. It is unclear if the two matters are in any way connected.

A Belarusian footprint

A second, dramatic shift in the investigation came in January 2021, when Igor Makar, a former Belarusian special forces officer, claimed Alexander Lukashenko signed off on an assassination plan in 2012.

To back up his argument, Makar released a contemporaneous recording of Vadim Zaitsev, Belaruss security chief. The man purported to be Zaitsev describes Sheremet as a massive pain in the arse. The recording continues: Well plant a bomb and this f***** rat will be taken down in f****** pieces legs in one direction, arms in the other direction.

Segvil Musayeva, editor in chief of Ukrainian Pravda, the famed investigative newspaper founded by Sheremets partner Olena Prytula, and where he latterly worked, says she has seen enough in the evidence presented by Makar to be persuaded by this explanation of her colleagues assassination.

One theory the investigation explored was that the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, signed off on Sheremets assassination

(AP)

Sheremet was, after all, a thorn in Lukashenkos side throughout his life, supporting dissidents and protests and financing an opposition newspaper, The Belarusian Partisan, via a charity in Lithuania. He was a personal enemy of the erratic leader.

We know Lukashenko has no use-by date when it comes to matters of revenge, Musayeva says. The murder, creepily enough, was carried out on the anniversary of Lukashenkos first inauguration: I cant prove it, and he may well have used Ukrainian killers, but the audio recording and Makars own testimony do fit the other pieces of evidence we have.

Others are more sceptical of this theory.

Irina Khalip, a journalist, friend and colleague of Sheremet from Minsk, says the chronology does not fit the contours of Belarusian politics. Even if Lukashenko had ordered an assassination in 2012, this was a period of protests and extreme tensions: Khalip herself was under house arrest and surveillance. By 2016, however, the Belarusian leader had moved on, and was enjoying a renaissance in relations with Europe. He had little to gain from the murder of a historical enemy.

Lukashenko was swimming in chocolate by then, freeing political prisoners, and even positioning himself as a great peacemaker in Ukraine, she says. Yes, his death squads had been implicated in multiple murders and disappearances, including Sheremets own cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky, but did not need four years to prepare a hit: If they get the order, they do it quickly, so for me the logic doesnt work.

Ekaterina Sergatskova, an editor and close friend of Sheremet since she moved to Kiev from Crimea in 2014, concurs: We cant rule anything out, but Pavel had become a marginal figure in Belarus by 2016, and at the same time Lukashenko was not quite the crazy dictator he is now.

Closer to home

Sergatskova, whose Zaborona website has probed a number of dropped investigation leads, says the most likely explanation remains the most troubling one: that Pavel was targeted by shadowy forces in the Ukrainian state as part of an attack on free media. That arguably provides the most logical answer for the sluggishness of the official investigation, the suggestions he had been followed, and the disappearance of key evidence.

There are many parallels with the murder of Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin in 2015, she says. Then and now, the hit men have been identified, but key evidence like CCTV footage went missing, and we are no closer to knowing who did it.

Leaked correspondence purporting to involve Artyom Shevchenko, press officer to the interior ministry, later suggested counter-intelligence had screwed up and dragged others into their mess

Certainly, Sheremet was a larger-than-life character, whose fearlessness represented the sharpest of Ukrainian journalism. Just two weeks before his murder, he was harangued by a press officer for not being more polite in his questioning of then president Poroshenko. During his time working for Ukrainian Pravda, the countrys most aggressive and professional investigative newspaper, he was a constant irritation to authorities. He was also the partner of Olena Prytula, the papers co-founder. Some have suggested she may have been the real target.

For all its post-Maidan political advances, Ukraine remains a dangerous place for journalism. Those asking the wrong questions at the wrong time risk physical assault and worse, and a culture of contract killings is undeniable.

President Zelensky, who has not always appeared well-briefed on the investigation, has refused to rule out the involvement of elements within Ukraines security services. At a press conference earlier this year, he said there was a possibility that figures connected to counter-intelligence in the former administration were involved.

Leaked correspondence purporting to involve Artyom Shevchenko, press officer to the interior ministry, later suggested counter-intelligence had screwed up and dragged others into their mess. Mr Shevchenko declined the opportunity to respond to the leak, or explain why the course of the official interior ministry investigation had proved so disappointing.

The fallout

The grisly act of 20 July 2016 was a political assassination, and it was investigated appallingly. This much is undeniable. But the challenge of identifying who was behind it is at least in part a consequence of there being no indisputable benefit for any of the obvious suspects.

Five years on, I cant understand who needed this murder, says Khalip. It has done nothing for no one, provided no political dividends, delivered nothing but grief to colleagues, relatives and friends.

But the fact that no one has been held responsible has had obvious effects for those working in his place. It has resulted in at least two waves of self-censorship, says Sergatskova.

In the murders immediate aftermath, many journalists held back from broaching the most sensitive of topics. Later, the announcement that war veterans may have been involved meant reporters became subjected to harassment from nationalistic forces. Some cut off reporting from the trial altogether.

Liudmila Sheremet, who says she now believes the answer to her sons death likely lies in Kiev, insists the search for truth has only one beneficiary: Ukraine.

Pavel is no more, thats all I care about, she says. Ukraine will decide in its own way how it wants to investigate, and if indeed it wants to give its people and its journalists the security of tomorrow.

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Five years after the assassination of a journalist, Ukraine is left with more questions than answers - The Independent

Glasgow plays host to the final tie of Euro 2020's round of 16 on Tuesday as Sweden and Ukraine face off in what may be one of the most closely fought knockout ties yet. Janne Anderson's Swedish side topped Group D off the back of a thrilling late win over Poland but have not necessarily blown away any of their opponents so far in this tournament.

Meanwhile Ukraine made it through to the last 16 as one of the three best-performing sides who finished third in their group and have one win to their name from games against the Netherlands, North Macedonia and Austria. Here is how you can watch the match and what you need to know:

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Sweden: Andriy Shevhcenko certainly seems to believe that Sweden's greatest success may come from the dead balls with Anderson's side blessed with strength and size across the XI but perhaps lacking the open play guile that will be needed in the deepest stages of the competition.

"We have to be very cautious at set pieces because Sweden make great use of them," the Ukraine manager said in his pre-match press conference. "It will also be very important to win second balls. There will be a lot of battling on the pitch, and of course, we need to be effective up front."

Ukraine: Though they started the tournament impressively in defeat to the Dutch there will be cause for concern from Shevchenko at how his side performed in the defeat to Austria, a match where Ukraine created shooting chances worth just 0.3 expected goals. Aside from Atalanta's Ruslan Malinovskyi this team seems to lack the creativity required to carve open teams, indeed the No.8 completed half of the mere four passes that were made into the Austrian half.

They could find similar problems grinding down the Swedish defense, which for much of their 3-2 win over Poland did rather well at limiting service to Robert Lewandowski. It should be even easier for Victor Lindelof and Marcus Danielson against Roman Yaremchuk.

This is unlikely to be a game of high quality attacking moments but Alexander Isak, Emil Forsberg and Dejan Kulusevski might just provide the necessary cutting edge for the Swedes. Pick: Sweden 1 Ukraine 0

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Sweden vs. Ukraine: Euro 2020 live stream, TV channel, how ...