The Council proclaimed the Belarusian Democratic Republic independent in its Third Constituent Charter on 25 March 1918 during the occupation of contemporary Belarus by the Imperial German Army.

After the 1917 February Revolution in Russia, active discussions started in Belarus about either gaining autonomy within the new Russian Republic or declaring independence.

On March 25, 1918, the All-Belarusian Congress proclaimed the independence of the Belarusian People's Republic (Bielaruskaja Narodnaja Respublika, abbreviated as BNR).

As the German army retreated, the Government of the BNR left Minsk in December 1918 for the Lithuanian Republic, and in the spring of 1919 went into exile.

The Council of the BNR, based at that time in Lithuania, sent officers to help organize armed anti-Bolshevik resistance in the town of Slutsk.

[20] In 1919, a delegation of the Belarusian People's Republic under Prime Minister Anton Łuckievič participated in the Paris Peace Conference, attempting to gain international recognition of the independence of Belarus.

[22][23] On November 11, 1920, the Belarusian People's Republic signed a treaty with the government of Lithuania in which both states declared to recognize each other and to cooperate together.

The Rada (Council) of the BNR moved to Hrodna, the center of a semi-autonomous Belarusian region within the Republic of Lithuania.

The advance of the Red Army in 1945 forced the BNR's Rada to relocate to the western part of Germany, occupied by British and American troops.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, similar governments-in-exile of the neighboring countries (Lithuania, Poland and others) handed back their mandates to the corresponding independent governments.

Upon declaration of independence of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1990, it was stated then that the Rada was ready to hand its status to a democratically elected parliament of Belarus.

[27] The Rada BNR still exists as a government in exile and attempts to lobby for interests of the Belarusian diaspora in countries where it has its deputies.

A national flag of three stripes – white-red-white – was adopted, as well as a state seal (Pahonia) based on an emblem of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.