Belarusian exiles’ hopes dashed as Lukashenko boasts of saving Putin

‘Lukashenko knows if Putin’s regime starts crumbling, he will fall first.’ The two dictators earlier this month in the Russian resort city of Sochi. Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AP

For a few hours on Saturday, as troops loyal to the renegade warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow, the Belarusian opposition in exile believed Day X had arrived.

That is how the democratic forces coalesced around Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus in 2020 after Alexander Lukashenko rigged a presidential vote and then ruthlessly crushed massive protests, refer to the day they hope to overthrow the Moscow-backed dictator.