Tthe last time Belarus held presidential elections in 2020, authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80% of the vote. That sparked cries of fraud, months of protests and a crackdown and thousands of arrests.
Unwilling to risk further unrest for those who oppose his three-decade rule, Lukashenko pushed forward the 2025 election—from warm August to cold January, when protesters have little chance of filling the streets.
With many of his political opponents imprisoned or exiled abroad, the 70-year-old Lukashenko is back on the ballot, and when the election closes on Sunday, he is certain to add a seventh term as the only majority leader post-Soviet Belarus has ever known.
Here’s what you need to know about Belarus, its elections and its relationship with Russia:
The ‘last dictator of Europe’ and his reliance on Russia
Belarus was part of the Soviet Union until it collapsed in 1991. The Slavic nation of 9 million people is located between Russia and Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the last three of which are all NATO members. It was defeated by Nazi Germany in World War II.
It is closely associated with the President of Moscow and Russia Vladimir Putin – he has been in power for a quarter century.
Lukashenko, a former state farm director, was first elected in 1994, riding public anger over the catastrophic decline in living standards after chaotic and painful free-market reforms. He promised to fight corruption.
Throughout his regime, he relies on funding and political support from Russia, allowing it to use Belarusian territory to attack Ukraine in 2022 and later agreeing to host some of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons.
Lukashenko was dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” at the start of his reign, and he has lived up to that nickname, brutally silencing dissent and extending his rule through elections the West called illiberal and unfair.
An open admirer of the Soviet Union, he restored Soviet-style control of the economy, discouraged the use of the Belarusian language in favor of Russian, and forced the country’s red and white flag to be abandoned in favor of a similar one. it was used as a Soviet republic.
Belarus’s top security agency has retained its fearsome Soviet-era name of the KGB, and is the only country in Europe to retain the death penalty, with executions by firing squad in the back of the head.
Flirting with the West, oppression at home
As he negotiated with the Kremlin over the years for more funding, Lukashenko occasionally tried to appease the West by easing pressure. Such flirtations ended after he unleashed violent opposition pressure after the 2020 elections.
That election to his sixth term was widely seen at home and abroad as corrupt, and sparked months of mass protests, the largest ever seen in Belarus.
The authorities responded with a massive crackdown in which more than 65,000 people were arrested, thousands were beaten by the police and hundreds of independent media outlets and NGOs were banned and banned, drawing Western sanctions.
Opposition leaders have been arrested or fled the country. Human rights activists say Belarus holds about 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, founder of the country’s human rights organization Viasna.
Lukashenko’s tactics before the election
Although Lukashenko’s current term does not expire until the summer, the election has been moved up in what officials said will allow him to “use his power in the first stage of strategic planning.”
Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich offered a different reason, saying “There won’t be big protests in January,” he said.
In another program, Lukashenko pardoned 250 people described as political prisoners by rights activists.
The pardon, however, comes amid intense pressure aimed at removing any remaining signs of dissent. Hundreds were arrested in raids targeting relatives and friends of political prisoners. Some of those arrested include participants in online forums organized by apartment dwellers in various cities.
Unlike the 2020 election, Lukashenko is only facing token opposition, with some opposition candidates barred from voting by the Central Election Commission. The election began with voting on Tuesday morning and will conclude on Sunday.
“Politicians who once had the courage to challenge Lukashenko are now rotting in prison under conditions of torture, they have not been contacted for a year, and some of them are in very poor health,” said Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko in the 2020 election and was forced to flee the country afterward, says the latest vote is a sham and has urged Belarusians to vote for every candidate. Her husband, activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski, tried to run four years ago but was arrested and is still in prison.
Under the Russian nuclear umbrella
In December 2024, Lukashenko and Putin signed an agreement providing security guarantees to Belarus that included the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons.
The deal follows Moscow’s revision of its nuclear doctrine, which for the first time placed Belarus under Russia’s nuclear umbrella amid tensions with the West over the war in Ukraine.
Lukashenko says Belarus hosts a large number of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Their deployment expands Russia’s ability to target Ukraine and NATO in Europe.
He also said that Belarus will prepare to host the Russian Oreshnik hypersonic missiles that were used in Ukraine for the first time in November. Putin said the missiles could be sent to Belarus in the second half of 2025, remaining under Moscow’s control while Minsk chooses the targets.
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