Belarus’s authoritarian president made a dramatic demonstration of defiance on Sunday opposed to major protests that did not facilitate his resignation, carrying a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest as he descended from a helicopter that landed on his as protesters piled up nearby.
On the 15th day of the largest and most decisive demonstrations ever to take place in independent Belarus, a crowd of some 200,000 people gathered against President Alexander Lukashenko in a square in Minsk, the capital. Then they went to another demonstration and approached the Palace of Independence, the president’s residence.
A video from official news firm Belta showed a government helicopter landing on the floor and Lukashenko descending with what gave the impression of being a Kalashnikov-type automatic rifle. There is no visual ammo clip on the weapon, suggesting that Lukashenko, who cultivates an aura of machismo, was only intended to demonstrate aggression.
The protests began on August 9 after a presidential election that officials said approved Lukashenko, 65, his sixth term with the approval of 80% of the electorate. Opponents say the effects are fraudulent.
The scale and duration of the protests are unprecedented in Belarus, a former Soviet republic of 9. 5 million more people than Lukashenko has ruled harshly for 26 years.
SEE The Belarusian president gets out of a helicopter with a rifle and bulletproof vest:
On Sunday afternoon, an opposition demonstration extended to Minsk’s extensive seven-hectare independence square. There were no official figures on the length of the crowd, but there were about 200,000 people or more.
The protesters then marched to another square about 2. 5 kilometres away and approached the accesses to the pre-show perspective, where police officers with the entire team stopped from side to side, holding giant shields.
The protesters dispersed into the night in the rain.
There were no immediate reports of arrests. Earlier this month, another 7,000 people were arrested in protests, many of whom were severely beaten with sticks or wounded with rubber bullets, violence that only annoyed government outrage. Public.
Lukashenko appears to be suffering from a strategy to counter anti-government protests.
He blamed Western interference, claimed the protests were supported through the United States, and accused NATO of increasing troop concentrations in Poland and Lithuania on Belarus’ western border, which the alliance denies.
He also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a position to offer security assistance to his government to suppress protests if requested.
Lukashenko has consistently suppressed the opposition during his tenure, and tiredness with his extremist regime, as well as dismay at the country’s deteriorating economy and Lukashenko’s arrogant rejection of the coronavirus pandemic, seem to have galvanized his opponents.
“Belarus has changed. Lukashenko has controlled to unite everyone, from the intelligentsia, in a not easy change,” said protester Slava Chirkov, who attended Sunday’s protest with his wife and son Array.
They held up a sign “Lukashenko, your milk went bad”, referring to the old paintings of Lukashenko as the director of a collective farm from the Soviet era.
An equally gigantic crowd attended a rally a week ago, and the rallies have taken up position since the vote. Many of the country’s major factories have been hit by protest movements through staff who have grown weary of government policies.
These movements only threaten the already suffering economy, but they also show that opposition to Lukashenko extends beyond informed white-collar circles and into his classical base of workers.
“Are you going to paint for a dictator? Strike, this is our answer,” Sergei Dilevsky, head of the strike committee at the Minsk tractor factory, one of Belarus’s largest commercial companies, told protesters. right now sunday’s rally venue.
Lukashenko’s main electoral opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fled to Lithuania the day after the election, while several other imaginable hopefuls left the country even before the election.
An Opposition Coordination Council established last week to design a force transition strategy, however, the Belarusian government has introduced a criminal investigation into its formation.
Also on Sunday, more than 50,000 Lithuanians joined a human chain stretching 30 kilometres from the capital Vilnius to the Belarusian border in solidarity with the protesters.
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