The uprising in Belarus and the poisoning of Alexei Navalny
Together they reveal the weakness of Russian autocracy
TO RUSSIA’S WEST, Belarus, previously a model of authoritarian stability, is in tumult. On August 9th its people refused to accept the official assertion that they had, once again, chosen to elect Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s dictator. In Russia’s far east demonstrators have been on the streets since July, when the governor of the Khabarovsk region, who had been elected without the Kremlin’s blessing, was arrested on Moscow’s orders and charged with murders committed in the early 2000s.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “The people lose patience”
Briefing August 29th 2020
From the August 29th 2020 edition
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