Putin may use force to aid tyrant facing poll backlash

THE West yesterday piled extra pressure on Belarus’s embattled president by accusing him of a rigged election to cling on to power.

As hundreds of thousands of prodemocracy protesters took to the streets calling on Alexander Lukashenko to stand down, the crisis threatened to boil over into an international stand-off.

Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated he was ready to provide military support to prop up the man known as ‘Europe’s last dictator’.

In the US, president Donald Trump said he was watching the ‘terrible’ situation ‘very closely’ while the EU called an emergency summit of heads of state for tomorrow.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said that more than 5,000 troops based in neighbouring Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were on standby to ‘deter any aggression’. Over 850 American and 900 British soldiers are among them.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab yesterday joined several western leaders in criticising the flawed election and subsequent extreme violence by police and security forces which left two demonstrators dead and hundreds injured.

Mr Raab said the UK did not accept the results of the ‘fraudulent’ presidential poll in which the tyrant claimed to have won 80% of votes. ‘The world has watched with horror at the violence used by the Belarusian authorities,’ he said. ‘The UK will work with our international partners to hold the Belarusian authorities to account.’

In ex-Soviet Belarus yesterday, demonstrations continued for a ninth consecutive day over the August 9 poll. But Mr Lukashenko was defiant as he warned: ‘There will be no new election until you kill me.’ He also indicated his ally Mr Putin is ready to enforce a decades-old military pact with Belarus and provide assistance to crack down on the rebels.

Kremlin sources have suggested Mr Putin will act ‘if necessary’. EU leaders fear Mr Putin may try to incorporate the landlocked nation into his vast empire.

Belarus sits in a strategic position, buffering Russia and Europe and hosting pipelines that carry Russian energy exports to the West.

Another theory is that Mr Putin – who has never forgiven Mr Lukashenko for publicly commenting on his divorce and relationship with gymnast Alina Kabaeva – may seek to impose his own solution on Belarus.

A Moscow source said Mr Putin could team up with Mr Lukashenko’s main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is now in Lithuania. They said: ‘He may try to work with Tikhanovskaya, as long as she agrees Belarus does not fall into the West’s orbit.’

Nato stressed troops have been stationed near Belarus since 2016 and are not there in reaction to the crisis.

‘No new election until you kill me ’