After ruling the country for three decades, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko told Time in an interview that he would not seek another term.
Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s right hand in Europe, has been in power since 1994 and was sworn in for his seventh term in March. His opponents deemed the January election undemocratic, but Lukashenko rejects any claim that he is an authoritarian ruler.
“These days, of course, I’m far from being Soviet, but Soviet principles, the best ones, live inside me,” Lukashenko told Time.
“Why should I reject them? Just like the Americans do not reject their history, it’s the same with me. That’s why we have this friendship with Russia, the closest kind of cooperation.”
Lukashenko has helped Russia conduct its war in Ukraine, heavily relies on Russia for its economy and is anti-European.
“Western Europe can get lost. Putin can disregard them. In this situation, if we reach a deal with the Americans, the Europeans won’t have any way out of it,” he told Time.
In 2022, Russian troops went through Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine. He also allowed his country to serve as a training ground for Russian troops, a storage locker for Russian ammunition and spoke with the Trump administration in favor of Putin.
He also told the Times that his son Nikolai was not next in the line of the succession, amid rumors that he was preparing him to take over the country.
In June 2023, Lukashenko presented himself as a peacemaker for helping to end an armed rebellion against Russian military generals led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the mercenary group Wagner. He proposed that Prigozhin take exile in Belarus rather than letting Putin take military action.
He has also cracked down on a number of popular protests. The most notable was in 2020, after citizens and international groups denounced that the election was stolen. He jailed his political opponents and imprisoned 65,000 protesters.
On Wednesday, he continued to conduct mass arrests of protesters who took part in anti-government rallies in the country and abroad.
In February, the White House secured the release of three political prisoners, including an American citizen and a Belarusian journalist.
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