Belarus Weekly: Minsk rushes with presidential election, seeking to hand Lukashenko a victory ahead of term’s end

Belarus rushes forward with a presidential election, seeking to hand Alexander Lukashenko a victory six months ahead of the official term’s end.
In an interview, Lukashenko says North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine would be an “escalation.”
Belarus and Russia to hold major joint military drills in September 2025.
Belarus court sentences two Ukrainians to 20 years in prison for alleged terrorism.
As Lukashenko claims willingness to consider pardon for opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava, human rights activists say her prison is known for widespread torture.
The Belarusian Central Election Committee (CEC) on Oct. 29 registered an initiative group supporting the candidacy of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for the presidency, while rejecting applications to register groups for two other candidates.
The move effectively allows Lukashenko to run for a seventh consecutive term in office unopposed. The election is to be held on Jan. 26, 2025.
At the first CEC meeting, only Lukashenko’s group received the registration necessary to start campaigning. Now, several more candidates were registered, all allies of Lukashenko and his regime.
Aleh Haidukevich, leader of the pro-Lukashenko Liberal Democratic Party, said he is an active supporter of Lukashenko since 1994. Alexander Hizhnyak, leader of the pro-Lukashenko Republican Party, said “Lukashenko is right choice for president.”
Another “candidate” is Olga Chemodanova, a former spokeswoman of the interior ministry, supported the suppression of protests and persecution of the opposition, saying that she supports the president in full.
Belarus hasn’t had free or fair elections since 1994, when Lukashenko came to power. The previous presidential election, which Lukashenko claimed to have won by a landslide with 80% of the vote, provoked nationwide protests and a subsequent regime crackdown on dissent.
In the course of quelling the opposition, Lukashenko’s regime eliminated independent media, closed over 1,700 non-profit civic organizations, banned all but four political parties loyal to the regime, and jailed over 1,300 political prisoners.
In late October, the Belarusian parliament approved Jan. 26 as the date for the seventh Belarusian presidential elections, nearly half a year earlier than stipulated in the country’s election legislation, and a month earlier than the previously rumored date of Feb. 23.
The Belarusian Central Election Commission, led by Ihar Karpenka, justified bringing the election forward as necessary for kicking off the new “five-year socio-economic development cycle” with a “re-elected” leader. Some experts, however, attribute the rush to hold the election to Lukashenko’s desire to secure his domestic political position ahead of potential negotiations over Russia’s war against Ukraine.
RFE/RL political analyst Valer Karbalevich suggested Lukashenko may be eyeing a role in future peace negotiations, while analyst Alexander Friedman noted that the accelerated election could also be a preparation for a potential escalation of the conflict.
Meanwhile, political analyst Artsiom Shraibman argues that the early election process is attributable to Lukashenko’s desire to mitigate risks of unrest by holding it in the cold winter month of January.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya denounced the election as a “sham,” accusing Lukashenko’s administration of running a “fake electoral process” under an “atmosphere of terror.” In a joint statement with her shadow cabinet and the opposition’s Coordination Council, Tsikhanouskaya urged her supporters to vote “against all” on the ballot in protest.
Belarusian political analysts believe that while the proposed tactics won’t stop Lukashenko from being reelected, they are the only possible and safe way for voters to register opposition to the authorities.
Even though the opposition is campaigning for Belarusians to vote against all candidates, a member of Tsikhanouskaya’s shadow cabinet, Yury Hubarevich, attempted to register as a presidential candidate.
“We must confirm with practical steps that no one but people approved by the regime will be able to participate in these elections,” Hubarevich told Zerkalo.io, explaining why he was attempting to register.
The current election legislation is stacked against the exiled Belarusian opposition: Only people who have been resident in Belarus for the past 20 years can register as presidential candidates, and they can hold no foreign residencies or citizenships. Most of the opposition activists also have convictions in politically motivated criminal cases, ruling them out as possible candidates for president.
Russia has already backed Lukashenko’s candidacy. “We will definitely be following the developments of the election campaign very closely,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s state-run TASS.
Earlier, Russia’s Ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, said Moscow will assist Minsk if there are “attempts to destabilize the situation” during the 2025 presidential elections in Belarus.
As the election campaign nears, Belarusian police have tightened their control of former political prisoners and those sentenced to house arrest, the independent Belarusian media outlet Euroradio wrote. Lukashenko opponents are summoned to police stations and forced to sign a “formal warning,” prohibiting them from carrying out actions aimed at “changing the constitutional order by force.”
In an interview with the BBC on Oct. 23, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko dismissed reports that North Korean troops have been deployed in Ukraine, saying that such a move would be “a step towards escalation.”
“Knowing his character, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would never try to persuade another country to involve its army in Russia’s special operation in Ukraine,” Lukashenko said, when the information about the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia was already confirmed by Kyiv and Soul. Hours later, the deployment was confirmed by Washington D.C.
Lukashenko argued that the involvement of the armed forces of any other country would be a step towards escalation and prompt NATO to deploy its troops in Ukraine.
“Even if we (Belarus) got involved in the war, this would be a path to escalation. Why? Because you, the ‘Anglo-Saxons,’ would immediately say that another country had become involved on one side… so NATO troops would be deployed to Ukraine,” Lukashenko said.
Russian propagandists commonly refer to the English-speaking countries, primarily the United States and the United Kingdom, as “Anglo-Saxons.”
While being Russia’s steadfast ally, Belarus has not sent its troops to the front line. However, the Russian military used Belarusian territory and infrastructure to stage its failed assault on Kyiv in the early days of the all-out invasion.
In the interview, Lukashenko denied providing Belarus’s territory for the attack. According to him, Putin had been withdrawing the troops from the Belarus-Ukraine border but “was provoked” to “turn them” on Kyiv.
In reality, there was a months-long buildup of Russian troops in Belarus and in parts of Russia close to the Ukrainian border. Russian troops also attacked Ukraine from the south, and from the Russian-occupied Crimea.
Lukashenko also denied being requested to commit his troops to the battlefield. “Never. Neither he (Putin), nor (former Defense Minister) Sergei Shoigu, nor the current Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has ever raised that question.”
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, earlier said that the first North Korean units were expected to arrive in Kursk Oblast on Oct. 23. Ukraine began a cross-border incursion in August and still holds significant swathes of territory there.
Two North Korean brigades of up to 6,000 personnel each are currently undergoing training in Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. According to military intelligence, some North Korean officers are already in the occupied territories of Ukraine, Zelensky said on Oct. 17.
North Korea has denied the reports, while the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov gave an evasive answer.
Belarus and Russia will hold joint strategic military exercises in Belarus in September 2025, Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces Commander Andrey Lukyanovich told Belarusian state-owned TV channel STV on Oct. 28.
According to Lukyanovich, Russia and Belarus will conduct preparative “operative-tactical exercises with live firing” in 2025, leading to a “joint strategic exercise” in September 2025.
The Air Force Commander did not name the exercise, yet the announcement comes on the heels of a meeting of the joint board of the Defense Ministries of the two states on Oct. 23, which approved the concept of the “Zapad-2025” joint strategic exercise of the armed forces without specifying the dates.
The previous Zapad strategic exercise took place in 2021, involving 200,000 Russian and Belarusian troops, with approximately 12,800 hosted in Belarus. It was followed by another military drill, the “Union Resolve 2022,” which was actually a disguise for the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border in late 2021 ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A Belarusian court has sentenced Serhiy and Pavlo Kabarchuk, a father and son from Ukraine, each to 20 years in prison for allegedly organizing a terrorist act in Belarus, the Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta reported on Oct. 23.
The two were detained on Feb. 15, 2024, after allegedly trying to smuggle weapons and explosives across the border of Belarus, helped by Ukraine’s SBU security agency and State Border Guard Service.
The next day, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced a successful “counterterrorist operation,” and a state TV channel aired footage of the Kabarchuks “confessing,” likely under duress, of working on the orders of the SBU.
Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Colonel Andriy Demchenko dismissed the claims, saying, “there is no end to Lukashenko’s absurdity.”
The Kabarchuks’ trial started on Sept. 26 in the southern Belarusian city of Homiel. The charges against them included attempting to commit a terrorist act, the illegal handling of firearms and explosives, smuggling firearms across the border, and undercover activities. The Belarusian authorities said both the father and son cooperated with investigators.
At least 12 Ukrainian citizens are held behind bars in Belarus on trumped-up charges, according to the Viasna Human Rights Group. The pressure on the Ukrainian community in Belarus has intensified since the all-out Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in which Belarus sided with Russia and provided its territory for attacks on Ukrainian targets.
Penal Colony No. 4 in the southern Belarusian city of Homiel, which houses prominent Belarusian political activist Maria Kalesnikava, uses torture against political prisoners, including placement in an outdoor cage on the territory of the colony, the International Committee for the Investigation of Torture.
The report, presented on Oct. 22, includes testimonies from 20 political prisoners convicted after a crackdown on dissent in Belarus that followed protests against sham presidential elections held in 2020. All interviewed prisoners served their terms in Homiel’s penal colony No. 4 between May 2021 to February 2024.
“One of the most heinous (punishments) is the cage located on the colony’s territory at the checkpoint between the residential and industrial zones,” the report reads. Women are reportedly placed in it for up to eight hours for refusing to comply with the demands of staff or for violent conflicts with other prisoners.
Among the multitude of repressive tools in the colony, human rights activists highlight the blockade of communication with the outside world, being deprived of hygiene products and medical care, arbitrary punishments, the use of solitary confinement, and humiliating practices such as strip searches.
Political prisoners face retaliation for their political views, according to Sergey Ustinov, the co-founder of the International Committee for the Investigation of Torture in Belarus. The committee is part of the International Accountability Platform of Belarus, a coalition of Belarusian and international human rights organizations documenting human rights violations by the Lukashenko regime.
High-profile political prisoners like Kalesnikava are frequently subjected to solitary confinement, isolated from others, with fellow inmates forbidden from speaking to them.
Kalesnikava, who led the campaign of presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka, who was in turn sentenced to 11 years in prison, has been held incommunicado for over 600 days since being admitted to intensive care with a severe medical condition that developed while she was in detention.
In remarks to the BBC on Oct. 23, Lukashenko declared he was ready to consider Kalesnikava’s plea for a pardon. He claimed her family hadn’t been granted visits because “they didn’t want to visit her.”
Members of Kalesnikava’s family, who are actively seeking her release, say she is malnourished, weighing 45 kilograms (99 pounds) while being 175 cm (5’7”) tall. They said prison food is unsuitable for her condition, and they report having no contact with her.
Since July 2024, Lukashenko has released 115 out of the country’s 1,300 political prisoners in four rounds of “pardons” while at the same time jailing more. Over July and August, human rights activists added 115 new names to Belarus’s list of recognized political prisoners.
On Sept. 16, that count rose again, with 22 new names added.