BBC: Something’s Really Wrong With Lukashenka
- 13.05.2023, 20:55
The dictator has not appeared in public for the fourth day.
The number one topic in the Belarusian media and social media was the state of health of Aliaksandr Lukashenka — on May 9, at ceremonial events in Moscow and Minsk, he looked unhealthy, ВВС reports.
The Belarusian media immediately drew attention to the fact that there was something wrong with Aliaksandr Lukashenka at the parade in Moscow. He looked exhausted, could not walk 300 meters on Red Square, he had to use an electric car. A bandage was noticed on his arm — such ones are put after a dropper. Lukashenka did not stay for lunch with Vladimir Putin and other presidents who came to Moscow.
In the evening, he flew to Minsk and, contrary to tradition, did not speak at the solemn ceremony in honor of May 9. Instead of Lukashenka, but on his behalf, as it was said, Minister of Defense Viktor Khrenin delivered a speech.
Russian journalists also talked about the state of Lukashenka's health. “Aliaksandr Lukashenka impressed everyone with his unhealthy appearance, and all of a sudden I felt sorry for this elderly man, who nevertheless pulled himself together at the last moment and went to Moscow. Now he seems completely unwell, and God forbid, he might need a stretcher with a resuscitation instrument, which was brought to the corner of GUM just before the start of the event, ”says Andrei Kolesnikov, a Kommersant journalist, in his text.
Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Lukashenka “should have left Moscow as soon as possible for festive events in Belarus, and discussing his health is “extremely impolite”.
Since then, Lukashenka has not appeared in public for the fourth day. There is no official information about the state of his health, this is not at all in the tradition of the Belarusian authorities. The Zerkalo publication calculated that over the past 10 years, Lukashenka and his representatives have spoken about his health only four times. In 2013 and 2014, he underwent surgeries on his knees (or two surgeries on one knee), and in 2020 he himself said that he twice had asymptomatic coronavirus.
As the Charter97.org website reported earlier, Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon believes that Lukashenka could have been poisoned in Moscow, and he will die soon. The military expert Oleksandr Musienko expressed the same version.