Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal with Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin on Saturday that ended an attempted armed rebellion against the Russian government.
Prigozhin said on Friday that his Wagner mercenaries would lead a “march of justice” against the Russian army, but ended the attempted coup d’état Saturday evening after arriving within 200 kilometers of Moscow because he claimed he wanted to avoid spilling Russian blood.
The Belarusian foreign ministry announced on Twitter that Lukashenko held negotiations with Prigozhin throughout the day on Saturday and that the Wagner group leader accepted the Belarusian president’s proposal to end the Wagner group’s march on Moscow.
This is what you need to know about the controversial Belarusian president:
Who is Alexander Lukashenko?
Lukashenko, often described as Europe’s last dictator, is the disputed president of Belarus. He has led the country as president for nearly 29 years, assuming office in July 1994.
Lukashenko, 68, began a sixth term in office after the controversial August 2020 Belarusian presidential election. The results of the election were widely regarded as fraudulent by Western countries and hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to protest Lukashenko’s attempts to hold onto power.
He is also a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Amid a wave of protests following the 2020 Belarusian election, Putin offered to provide Lukashenko with military support. Lukashenko also supported Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, allowing the Russian military to invade Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is Lukashenko’s main political opponent. She challenged Lukashenko in the 2020 election after her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, was arrested and prevented from running in the presidential election that year.
Tsikhanouskaya was forced to flee Belarus after the 2020 election and currently lives in exile in Europe. She has since been sentenced to prison in-absentia by Belarusian authorities.
