Editing Alexander Lukashenko

{{Important}}{{Villain_Infobox
|name = Alexander Lukashenko
|Image = Alexander Lukashenko crop.jpeg
|fullname = Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko
|alias = Aljaksandr Ryhoravič Lukašėnka (Belarusian transliteration)<br>Aleksandr Grigor'evič Lukašenko (Russian transliteration)<br>Europe's Last Dictator<br>Bats'ka<br>Russia's Son of a Bitch<br>Sasha 3%<br>Tarakanishche
|origin = Kopys, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union
|occupation = President of Belarus (1994 - present)
|skills = Very high intelligence
Extensive political experience
|hobby = Ruling Belarus<br>Playing hockey<br>Farming
|goals = Stay in office (ongoing; successful)<br>Make Belarus similar to Russia (ongoing)<br>Spread propaganda at the Eurovision Song Contest (failed)
|crimes = Tyranny<br>Abuse of power<br>Human rights violations<br>Political corruption<br>Electoral fraud<br>[[Authoritarianism]]<br>[[Censorship]]<br>[[Propaganda]]<br>[[Misogyny]]<br>[[Homophobia]]<br>[[Genocide]]<br>Mass [[murder]]<br>[[Crimes against humanity]]<br>[[War crimes]]<br>[[Americophobia]]<br>[[Anglophobia]]
|type of villain = Oppressive Dictator}}
{{Quote|My position and the state will never allow me to become a dictator, but an authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it. You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people's lives.|Alexander Lukashenko}}
'''Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko''' (born August 30, 1954) is the current [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_leaders_of_Belarus President of Belarus]. He assumed the post on 20 July 1994, making him the longest serving and longest current serving European president. However, since the contested presidential election of August 2020, the European Union does not recognize him as the legitimate president of the Republic of Belarus.

Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko worked as director of a state-owned agricultural farm and spent time with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Border_Troops Soviet Border Troops] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Army Soviet Army]. 

When he first entered politics, he was seen as a champion against corruption and was the only deputy to vote against the independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union.

Under Lukashenko's rule, the Belarusian government's conduct has been criticized in reports by international non-government organizations for violations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Belarus of human rights] and of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law international law]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-8 [8]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-militia-9 [9]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-10 [10]] Belarus has been called "the last true remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe" by former and current European and American leaders.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-11 [11]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-reuters1-12 [12]]</sup> He and other Belarusian officials are also the subject of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions sanctions] imposed by the European Union and the United States for human rights violations off and on since 2006.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-13 [13]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko#cite_note-14 [14]]</sup> His domestic policies are similar to those of the former Soviet Union, maintaining government control over key industries and denouncing the privatization seen in other former Soviet republics. He is also highly [[Homophobia|Homophobic]] with him even saying “It’s better to be a dictator than gay”.
==Biography==
Lukashenko graduated from the Mogilyov Teaching Institute and the Belarusian Agricultural Academy. In the mid-1970s he was an instructor in political affairs, and he spent five years in the army. He subsequently held minor posts in the Komsomol (Communist youth organization) and in local party organizations. 

In 1979, he joined the ranks of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]. After leaving the military, he became the deputy chairman of a collective farm in 1982 and in 1985, he was promoted to the post of director of the Gorodets state farm and construction materials plant in the Shklow district. 

In 1987, he was appointed as the director of the Gorodets state farm in Shklow district and in early 1988, was one of the first in Mogilev Region to introduce a leasing contract to a state farm. He was elected to the parliament of the Belorussian S.S.R. in 1990.

In parliament, Lukashenko created a faction called Communists for Democracy. He was the only deputy to oppose the December 1991 agreement that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He maintained a close association with conservative communist factions in independent Belarus and had links with similar groups in Russia. In 1994 he addressed the Russian State Duma in Moscow with an appeal for the formation of a new union of Slavic states.

Lukashenko was elected president of Belarus in 1994. Among other things, he promoted closer ties with Russia and in the succeeding years signed a number of agreements with Russian President Boris Yeltsin that called for various forms of union between the two countries. In 1996 he persuaded voters to approve a new constitution that gave him sweeping additional powers, including the right to prolong his term in office, to rule by decree, and to appoint one-third of the upper house of parliament. An authoritarian and unpredictable leader, he resisted economic and political reforms, suppressed dissent in the media and among the people, and led Belarus into isolation from its European neighbours and the international community.

In 1999 Lukashenko and Yeltsin succeeded in signing a Treaty on the Creation of a Union State, which proposed broad cooperation but stipulated independence for both states. Although Lukashenko’s term of office had been scheduled to expire in 1999, he continued in office under the new terms he had negotiated. Reelected in 2001, he oversaw the passage 2004 of a controversial amendment that allowed him to seek a third term. Lukashenko won the 2006 election amid allegations of tampering. Many countries and organizations condemned the election, and the European Union (EU) subsequently barred Lukashenko and a number of his officials from entering any of its member countries. In 2008, in an attempt to improve relations with Belarus, the EU temporarily removed its travel ban against the president. Lukashenko easily won another term as president in elections held in late 2010, and, as in 2006, there were allegations of voting irregularities.

On 11 October 2015, Lukashenko was elected for his fifth term as the President of Belarus. In mid-September 2017, Lukashenko oversaw the advancement of joint Russian and Belarusian military relations during the military drills that were part of the Zapad 2017 exercise. Just over three weeks later, he was inaugurated in the Independence Palace in the presence of attendees such as former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, Chairman of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov, and Belarusian biathlete Darya Domracheva.

in August 2018, Lukashenko fired his prime minister [[Andrei Kobyakov]] and various other officials due to a corruption scandal. Sergei Rumas was appointed to take his place as prime minister. In May 2017, Lukashenko signed a decree on the Foundation of the Directorate of the 2019 European Games in Minsk. In April 2019, Lukashenko announced that the games were on budget and on time and eventually he opened the 2nd edition of the event on 21 June. Between 1–3 July 2019, he oversaw the country's celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Minsk Offensive, which culminated in an evening military parade of the Armed Forces of Belarus on the last day, which is the country's Independence Day.

In August 2019, Lukashenko met with former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has lived in exile in Minsk since 2010, in the Palace of Independence to mark Bakiyev's 70th birthday, which he had marked several days earlier. The meeting, which included the presentation of traditional flowers and symbolic gifts, angered the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry which stated that the meeting "fundamentally does not meet the principles of friendship and cooperation between the two countries". On 29 August, John Bolton, the National Security Advisor of the United States, was received by Lukashenko during his visit to Minsk, which was the first of its kind in 18 years. In November 2019, Lukashenko visited the Austrian capital of Vienna on a state visit, which was his first in three years to an EU country. During the visit, he met with President Alexander Van der Bellen, Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein, and National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka. He also paid his respects at the Soviet War Memorial at the Schwarzenbergplatz.

Mass protests erupted across Belarus following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election which was marred by allegations of widespread electoral fraud. Subsequently, opposition presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya claimed she had received between 60 and 70% of the vote and formed a Coordination council to facilitate the peaceful and orderly transfer of power in Belarus.

On 15 August 2020, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius referred to Lukashenko as the "former president" of Belarus. It was reported that President Lukashenko's authorities asked Kremlin representatives about the possibility of Lukashenko escaping to Russia. Furthermore, it was reported that Russia admits that Lukashenko's resignation from the post of head of state is likely.

On 17 August, the members of the European Parliament issued a joint statement which stated that they do not recognise Alexander Lukashenko as the president of Belarus, considering him to be persona non grata in the European Union. On 19 August, the member states of the European Union agreed to not recognise the results and issued a statement saying "The 9 August elections were neither free nor fair, therefore we do not recognise the results".

The governments of the United States, United Kingdom and Canada have also refused to recognise the results. In an interview on 22 August, Josep Borrell explicitly stated that the European Union does not recognise Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus in the same manner that it does not recognise [[Nicolás Maduro]] as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

In January 2021, an audio recording was released in which the commander of internal troops and deputy interior minister of Belarus [[Mikalai Karpiankou]] tells security forces that they can cripple, maim and kill protesters in order to make them understand their actions. This, he says, is justified because anyone who takes to the streets is participating in a kind of guerrilla warfare. In addition, he discussed the establishment of [[concentration camp]]s, surrounded by barbed wire, where protesters will be detained until the situation calms down. A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry stamped the audio file as a fake. However, a phonoscopic examination of the audio recording confirmed that the voice on the recording belongs to Karpiankou.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe expressed its concern about the remarks. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, such a camp was indeed used near the town of Slutsk in the days from 13 to 15 August 2020. Many of those detained there are said to have been brought from the Okrestina prison in Minsk.

Beginning on March 1, 2022, Lukashenko allied Belarus with Russia during [[Vladimir Putin]]'s invasion of Ukraine, sending Belarusian troops to fight alongside Russian troops and providing support to both the [[Donetsk People's Republic]] and the [[Luhansk People's Republic]].

This involvement is due to a debt to the president of the Russian federation, who helped him undermine protests and rig elections to stay in power, Lukashenko has always been reluctant to engage in military aggression.

==Trivia==
*He, [[Dmitry Medvedev]], Gerhard Schröder, Jacques Chirac, [[Silvio Berlusconi]], Tarja Halonen, Vaclav Klaus, [[Aleksandar Vučić]], [[Viktor Orbán]], [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]], Zoran Milanović, Panos Kammenos, Michael I of Romania, [[Nicolas Sarkozy]], Robert Fico, Rumen Radev, Igor Dodon and [[Viktor Yanukovych]] is the only leaders of a European country that supports Putin.
*He is one of Putin's three closest allies during the Ukrainian invasion. The other 2 being [[Viktor Yanukovych]] and [[Ramzan Kadyrov]].
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