Decolonial (Un)coupling from Russia?: The Relationship between the European Union and the Belarusian Democratic Opposition

The article examines how the Belarusian democratic opposition navigates decolonization from Russia while simultaneously adopting EU frameworks. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches in international relations and an analysis of transnational political interactions, it shows that: (1) the opposition’s ‘European turn’ represents both a rejection of Russian hegemony and an internalization of Eurocentric models; (2) EU actors support cultural decolonization and de-Sovietization but partly resist efforts to ‘uncouple’ from Russian dissidents; and (3) these dynamics expose the dilemma of seeking sovereignty through alignment with another geopolitical center, between Russian colonial legacies and EU frameworks.