Lukashenko says Belarus could have faced Ukraine’s fate after 2020 vote

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that his country could have experienced a situation similar to Ukraine’s if attempts to distance Belarus from Russia had succeeded during the political crisis that followed the 2020 presidential election.

Speaking at the “Youth. Belarus. Future” forum in Minsk, Lukashenko said Western countries had sought to separate Belarus from Russia during the unrest that followed the August 2020 presidential election.

“They tried to do this in 2020,” Lukashenko said, according to Russian media reports. “If it had succeeded, we would have had what is happening in Ukraine now.”

Lukashenko has long portrayed Belarus’s close relationship with Russia as a central element of the country’s security. His latest remarks again linked the survival of Belarus’s political system to maintaining its alliance with Moscow.

The 2020 election triggered mass protests after Belarusian authorities declared Lukashenko the winner. Western governments rejected the official result, while Russia backed Lukashenko as the political crisis intensified. In August 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had prepared a reserve of law-enforcement personnel that could be deployed to Belarus if the situation deteriorated, although he said there was no immediate need to use the force.