Why is the mild West afraid to promote its democratic values?

An athlete seeking sanctuary in a foreign embassy after a state–sponsored attempt to spirit her home from the Olympics; a dissident found hanging from a tree in a foreign country that he’d been helping his compatriots escape to; a passenger jet diverted so one of its passengers could be arrested. The fate of critics of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus might have been drawn from the depths of the Cold War. Like North Korea, Belarus has become a land that time forgot, still fighting battles we assumed had been lost decades ago.

There is, however, a big difference between now and the Cold War. The voice of the West is much fainter when condemning authoritarian regimes. Yes, Boris Johnson did meet the exiled Belarusian opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, in Downing Street last week and told her that the West was with her. A handful of senior Belarusian officials have had foreign assets frozen and the EU has imposed sanctions on potash exports from the country.