“The constructive discussion will go on”, Peskov said, adding that Putin and Lukashenko would soon meet in Kazakhstan, at the summits of the CIS and the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on October 15-16.
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Another prominent opposition figure, Vladimir Neklyaev, said: “We do not consider the spectacle performed by the Belarusian authorities to be an election and do not recognise it”.
Despite at times tense relations with Moscow, he and Belarus’s Soviet-style planned economy are propped up by Russian Federation, which supplies the country of 9.5 million with energy at a massive discount.
“That would mean that people were beginning to move away and were dissatisfied with a few of my policies”, the president said after voting in Minsk.
Lukashenko, accompanied by his youngest son Nikolai, appeared at a polling station in a student’s compound in one of the residential districts of Minsk on Sunday, and said that a possible improvement of relations depends now on the West.
The preliminary results showed Mr. Lukashenko won by a greater percentage than in his last re-election race, when he won just under 80% of votes.
In April, Mr Lukashenko joked that he was “not Europe’s last dictator any more”.
The two leaders are now locked in a spat over whether Russian Federation can open an air base in Belarus as Moscow flexes its military might.
In response to Lukashenko’s release of the prisoners, Brussels is mulling its asset freezes and travel bans against Belarusian officials, including Lukashenko, who had been blacklisted in previous years for Belarus’s manipulation of election results and the persecution of the political opposition.
It also noted that a woman, Tatsiana Karatkevich (who is critical of Lukashenko), was allowed to run for the first time.
The 61-year-old strongman’s ultra-close, and often freakish relationship with his third son, the child of his doctor, has held the former Soviet state in thrall, where Lukashenko’s personal life is widely discussed, albeit cautiously.
French President Francois Hollande also attended the truce talks, along with Putin and Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko.
President Alexander Lukashenko has extended his autocratic rule in Belarus by winning the fifth consecutive term in an election labelled by opposition as a farce. This information was published by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, which organized the survey.
Now, an election observation mission was sent by OSCE in Belarus to assess the presidential election for its compliance with global obligations and standards for democratic elections. “If you give me carte blanche for any destruction and any revolutionary transformations, if that is what you want, then for God’s sake we will do it”, he said.
“Oh, life has become harder, but Lukashenko promises stability and peace”, said 68-year-old Tamara Krylovich after voting in Minsk. “I have nothing against Batka but I wanted someone younger”, she said, using Lukashenko’s nickname, meaning father.
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“Nothing will change after this election”, she said.
