In the two months since rigged presidential elections jolted Belarus out of a deep political slumber after a quarter-century of authoritarian rule, a stalemate appeared to be setting in. Demonstrators continued to fill the streets in numbers that until recently would have been unthinkable, while President Aleksandr Lukashenko showed no sign of stepping down.
But then Lukashenko blinked—setting off a chain of events that could cause the situation to escalate in the weeks to come.
