Belarus – trying to escape a terrible history

 
Belarus, known as the last dictatorship in Europe is in uproar as the rolling presidency of strongman Alexander Lukashenko, at the helm since 1994, notched up another rigged election win. A landlocked country of 9.5 million inhabitants, with Poland to the west, Russia to the east, Ukraine south and Lithuania, Latvia to the north, it has been badly hit by economic mismanagement and the pandemic.
Belarus’s history is complicated though it became a founding member of the Soviet Union p