Belarusian security personnel conduct a search of the Ryanair flight from which they took dissident journalist Roman Protasevich.
EPA-EFE/ONLINER.BY HANDOUT
Belarus’ leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has gone to extraordinary measures to cling to power. Last weekend, this included the state-sanctioned hijacking of a passenger plane.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko visits a hospital for COVID-19 patients, unmasked, in Minsk on Nov. 27, 2020.
Andrei Stasevich\TASS via Getty Images
The pandemic’s not over yet, but these world leaders have already cemented their place in history for failing to effectively combat the deadly coronavirus. Some of them didn’t even really try.
Police arrest a protester at a Moscow rally in support of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who fell ill while in prison and is now hospitalized.
Alexander Demianchuk\TASS via Getty Images
There’s not much the world can do to stop authoritarian rulers from persecuting their political opponents, as shown by the standoff over Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is ill and imprisoned.
Russian police officers beat people protesting the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Jan. 23, 2021 in Moscow.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
And there’s not too much the rest of the world can do to stop them.
In exile or prison: Belarus opposition figures Svetlana Tikhanovsksaya, Veronika Tsepkalo and Maria Kolesnikova.
Natalia Fedosenko/TASS/Alamy Live News
Hundreds of thousands of people have protested the regime of Alexander Lukashenko over the last six months – a new survey reveals what they want.
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting in Osaka, Japan, June, 28, 2019.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has exposed the fragility of democratic institutions, mirroring a global trend in authoritarianism, and that will have a lasting effect on the United States.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko takes the oath of office during an unannounced inauguration ceremony Sept. 23 in Minsk.
Andrei Stasevich\TASS via Getty Images
Russia’s reaction to previous unrest in its neighbours provides clues on how Vladimir Putin may respond to protests in Belarus.
Deploying riot police to suppress peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Belarus turned more people against the country’s autocratic leader.
AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File
Pres. Lukashenka of Belarus has stayed in power for 26 years by being a master tactician. But he has seriously mishandled opposition protests, says a Belarus-born scholar of Eastern European politics.
A protester is tackled to the ground by a man in plain clothes during post-election unrest.
EPA/Tatyana Zenkovich
A pared-down, humorous and intimate monologue, this production explores the human dimension of a political movement. It is a challenge to tacit silence and collective amnesia in Australia also.
Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko grasps Moldova’s Nicolae Timofti on a recent state visit.
EPA
Belarus and Moldova are two former-Soviet states which have moved in very different directions since the end of the Cold War. Moldova has looked firmly west, but struggled to escape Russia’s influence…
Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies, University of South Florida
Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of Canberra