Ukraine does not consider Alexander Lukashenko the legitimate president of Belarus, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulebahours announced Thursday, a day after the veteran leader was sworn in for a sixth term.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s \u201cinauguration\u201d of Lukashenko does not mean his recognition as a legitimate head of Belarusian state,\u201d he wrote on Twitter. \u201cUkraine has never interfered in internal affairs of Belarus and will always support the Belarusian people.”<\/p>\n
Protests broke out after Lukashenko, who has served as president since 1994, was declared the winner of Aug. 9 polls. Opposition candidates, however, accused the administration of rigging the vote.<\/p>\n
Despite a crackdown, anti-government protests continue. Many opposition figures are in self-imposed exile in neighboring countries.<\/p>\n
The EU and the US have also refused to recognize Lukashenko as the president of Belarus, saying the disputed election lacks democratic legitimacy.<\/p>\n
Russia, on the contrary, not only recognizes him but has pledged financial support, a $1.5 billion loan, and that it is ready to intervene if protests get out of control.<\/p>\n
Both countries are also participating in the Slavic Brotherhood joint military drills.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko\u2019s swearing-in took place at the Independence Palace in the capital Minsk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine does not consider Alexander Lukashenko the legitimate president of Belarus, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulebahours announced Thursday, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70,1968,1969],"class_list":["post-4678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alexander-lukashenko","tag-belarus-protests","tag-ukraine-foreign-minister-dmytro-kuleba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}