Additional concerns of protesters were the enforced disappearances of opposition politicians Viktar Hanchar and Yury Zacharanka and, more broadly, the authoritarian rule of President Alexander Lukashenko.

[4] Despite the support of Yeltsin and Berezovsky, Lukashenko was much more eager to pursue the union, due to what The Guardian referred to as Belarus' status as an "economic liability" for Russia.

[5] Lukashenko's authoritarian rule was also a significant factor in the protests, specifically the enforced disappearances of opposition politicians Viktar Hanchar and Yury Zacharanka in the spring of 1999, as well as the imprisonment of other anti-Lukashenko activists.

[6] The non-binding, opposition-held 1999 Belarusian presidential election, which had resulted in the disappearances of Hanchar and Zacharanka, brought the government and opposition to the brink of confrontation.

[4] In September 1999, a coalition of seven young members of the opposition, among them Ales Bialiatski, Vincuk Viačorka, Anatoly Lebedko, and Mikola Statkevich, announced the Freedom March in Minsk, scheduled for a month and a half later.

There, a short rally was held before the column marched down Maksim Bahdanovič Street [be] to the city's first ring, where an attempt was made to enter Victory Square.

[7] The Belarusian government strongly criticised the protests and took aim at the western world for responsibility, with Mikhail Myasnikovich claiming, "The west's money doesn't get spent on medicines or on the victims of the Chernobyl accident, but on those who are fighting, smashing, demolishing and setting fires."

For the opposition, it marked a transition from the pre-Lukashenko Belarusian Popular Front to a younger generation of dissidents, and led to an increase in sales for pro-opposition newspapers.