Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko[c] (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka;[d] born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994,[7] making him the current longest-serving European leader.

Lukashenko's maintenance of the socialist economic model is consistent with the retaining of Soviet-era symbolism, including the Russian language, coat of arms and national flag.

Lukashenko played a crucial role in creating the Union State of Russia and Belarus, enabling Belarusians and Russians to travel, work, and study freely between the two countries.

Ekaterina worked unskilled jobs on a railway, at a construction site, at a flax factory in Orsha and finally as a milkmaid in Alexandria, a small village in the east of Belarus, close to the Russian border.

The questions ranged from social issues, including changing the independence day to 3 July (the date of the liberation of Minsk from Nazi forces in 1944) and the abolition of the death penalty, to the national constitution.

[51] Jane's Intelligence Digest surmised that the price of Russian support for Lukashenko ahead of the 2001 presidential election was the surrender of Minsk's control over its section of the Yamal–Europe gas pipeline.

Belarus grew economically under Lukashenko, but much of this growth was due to Russian crude oil which was imported at below-market prices, refined, and sold to other European countries at a profit.

The Gallup Organisation noted that the Belarusian Republican Youth Union are government-controlled and released the exit poll results before noon on election day even though voting stations did not close until 8 pm.

Lukashenko "permitted State authority to be used in a manner which did not allow citizens to freely and fairly express their will at the ballot box... a pattern of intimidation and the suppression of independent voices... was evident throughout the campaign.

[97] Several European foreign ministers issued a joint statement calling the election and its aftermath an "unfortunate step backwards in the development of democratic governance and respect for human rights in Belarus.

[100][101][102] Lukashenko was supportive of China's Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure development strategy, and the inception in 2012 of the associated low-tax China–Belarus Industrial Park near Minsk National Airport planned to grow to 112 square kilometres (43 sq mi) by the 2060s.

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.

[126][127] Subsequently, opposition presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya claimed she had received between 60 and 70% of the vote[128][129] and formed a Coordination council to facilitate the peaceful and orderly transfer of power in Belarus.

When questioned about the whereabouts of Alexander Lukashenko on this day, his publicity team released an undated photograph of him walking around the grounds of the Independence Palace holding a gun.

The contingency decree states that in the event that the President is unable to perform his duties, martial law will be immediately imposed and presidential power will be transferred to the Security Council, which is widely believed to be made up of strong allies of Lukashenko.

[154] Lukashenko told Wagner that he would be squashed like bugs if he tried to enter Belarus and warned that Putin would never agree to remove top generals, including Defense minister Sergei Shoigu.

[195] On 1 September 2020, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) declared that its experts received reports of 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of people who were arrested during the protests following the presidential election.

"[200] 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.

Hanchar and Krasouski disappeared the same day of a broadcast on state television in which President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the chiefs of his security services to crack down on "opposition scum."

[209] On 4 January 2021, the EU Observer reported that new evidence, including documents and audio recordings, provide that Belarusian secret services planned to murder dissidents abroad.

On 23 May 2021, Lukashenko personally ordered Ryanair Flight 4978 en route from Athens to Vilnius, carrying the opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, to land in Belarus.

[211] The flight was forced to land at Minsk International Airport shortly before it reached the Lithuanian border after Belarusian air traffic control conveyed a report of explosives on board the plane.

Belarusian authorities said no explosives were found and arrested Protasevich, who was placed in a list of "individuals involved in terrorist activity" the previous year for his role in the anti-government protests and incitement to Public disorder.

[75] Throughout July state-controlled channel NTV broadcast a multi-part documentary entitled "The Godfather" highlighting the suspicious disappearance of the opposition leaders Yury Zacharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasouski and journalist Dzmitry Zavadski during the late 1990s.

[218] Lukashenko afterwards accused Russia of collaborating with opposition activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski and trying to cover up an attempt to send 200 fighters from a private Russian military firm known as the Wagner Group into Belarus on a mission to destabilize the country ahead of its 9 August presidential election.

[239] On 1 March 2023, Lukashenko met Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing, which produced a range of cooperation documents on industry, trade, agricultural, and other matters.

[261] On 4 March 2012, two days after EU leaders (including openly gay German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle) had called for new measures to pressure Lukashenko over alleged human rights abuses in Belarus at a summit in Brussels, Lukashenko provoked diplomatic rebuke from Germany after commenting that it was "better to be a dictator than gay"[262] in response to Westerwelle having referred to him as "Europe's last dictator" during the meeting.

[277] A film produced by Nexta, a Belarusian media service based in Poland, accuses Lukashenko of misappropriating EU funds on residences and automobiles.

[282] Lukashenko has been seen on public occasions with various women; when asked about this in the same 2014 interview he explained that he did not want to sit with an official with a "sour face", preferring "My son on one side, and a girl on the other".

[285][286] According to Belarusian state media, these speculations were dismissed by Lukashenko, who also denied that he would remain in office for a further thirty years—the time Nikolai will become eligible to stand for election and succeed him.