Putin Ally Lukashenko Declared Winner in Belarus Election Scorned by the West as a Sham 

A handout photo made available by the Belarusian President's press service shows Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko casting his ballot as he votes in the presidential elections at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, 26 January 2025. (EPA/Belarus President Press Service / Handout)
A handout photo made available by the Belarusian President's press service shows Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko casting his ballot as he votes in the presidential elections at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, 26 January 2025. (EPA/Belarus President Press Service / Handout)
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Putin Ally Lukashenko Declared Winner in Belarus Election Scorned by the West as a Sham 

A handout photo made available by the Belarusian President's press service shows Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko casting his ballot as he votes in the presidential elections at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, 26 January 2025. (EPA/Belarus President Press Service / Handout)
A handout photo made available by the Belarusian President's press service shows Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko casting his ballot as he votes in the presidential elections at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, 26 January 2025. (EPA/Belarus President Press Service / Handout)

Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election that Western governments rejected as a sham.

"You can congratulate the Republic of Belarus, we have elected a president," Igor Karpenko, the head of the country's Central Election Commission, told a news conference in the early hours of Monday.

Lukashenko, who faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results published on the Central Election Commission's official Telegram account.

European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media are banned in the former Soviet republic and all leading opposition figures have either been jailed or forced to flee abroad.

"The people of Belarus had no choice. It is a bitter day for all those who long for freedom & democracy," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on X.

Election officials said turnout was 85.7% in the election, in which 6.9 million people were eligible to vote.

Asked about the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko had told a news conference on Sunday that they had chosen their own fate.

"Some chose prison, some chose 'exile', as you say. We didn't kick anyone out of the country," he told a rambling news conference that lasted more than four hours.

A close ally of President Vladimir Putin who allowed the Russian leader to use his country as a staging area for sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, Lukashenko had earlier defended his jailing of dissidents and declared: "I don't give a damn about the West."

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters this week that Lukashenko had engineered his re-election as part of a "ritual for dictators". Demonstrations against him took place on Sunday in Warsaw and other East European cities.

Lukashenko shrugged off the criticism as meaningless and said he did not care whether the West recognized the election.

PUTIN ALLY

The European Union and the United States both said they did not acknowledge him as the legitimate leader of Belarus after he used his security forces to crush mass protests following the last election in 2020, when Western governments backed Tsikhanouskaya's claim that Lukashenko had rigged the count and cheated her of victory.

Human rights group Viasna, which is banned as an "extremist" organization in Belarus, says there are still about 1,250 political prisoners in his jails though Lukashenko has freed more than 250 in the past year on what he called humanitarian grounds.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Belarus had "just unilaterally released an innocent American", whom he named as Anastassia Nuhfer.

He gave no further details about the case, which had not been made public.

The war in Ukraine has bound Lukashenko more tightly than ever to Putin, and Russian tactical nuclear weapons are now deployed in Belarus.

If the conflict ends, political analysts say he is most likely to seek to restore his ties with the West in an attempt to get sanctions lifted.



Trump Deploys Marines, Raising Tensions in Los Angeles Protests

Members of the California National Guard stand watch outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on the morning of June 10, 2025, following another day of protests in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles. (AFP)
Members of the California National Guard stand watch outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on the morning of June 10, 2025, following another day of protests in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles. (AFP)
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Trump Deploys Marines, Raising Tensions in Los Angeles Protests

Members of the California National Guard stand watch outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on the morning of June 10, 2025, following another day of protests in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles. (AFP)
Members of the California National Guard stand watch outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on the morning of June 10, 2025, following another day of protests in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles. (AFP)

Hundreds of Marines were due to arrive in Los Angeles on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump ordered their deployment in response to protests against immigration arrests and despite objections by state officials.

The 700 crack troops will join National Guard soldiers, amping up the militarization of the tense situation in the sprawling city, which is home to millions of foreign-born and Latino residents.

The largely peaceful demonstrations -- marred by sporadic but violent clashes between police and protesters -- were entering their fifth day. The unrest was sparked by a sudden intensification of Trump's signature campaign to deport illegal migrants, with raids conducted on workplaces.

In downtown LA's Little Tokyo neighborhood at night Monday, scores of protesters faced off with security officials in riot gear, some shooting fireworks at officers who fired back volleys of tear gas.

Earlier, demonstrators marching with banners and handmade signs yelled "ICE out of LA" and "National Guard go away" -- a reference to immigration agents and Guard soldiers.

California officials have stressed the majority of protesters have been peaceful and that they were capable of maintaining law and order themselves.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X that US Marines "shouldn't be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American."

Trump, meanwhile, has branded the LA protesters "professional agitators and insurrectionists."

"If I didn't 'SEND IN THE TROOPS' to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now," he wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.

One small business owner in the city, whose property was graffitied during the protests, was supportive of Trump's strong-arm tactics.

"I think it's needed to stop the vandalism," she told AFP, declining to give her name.

Others were horrified.

"They're meant to be protecting us, but instead, they're like, being sent to attack us," Kelly Diemer, 47, told AFP. "This is not a democracy anymore."

Police have detained dozens of protesters in LA in the recent days, while authorities in San Francisco and other US cities have also made arrests.

- 'Incredibly rare' -

Trump's use of the military is an "incredibly rare" move for a US president, Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, told AFP.

The National Guard -- a fully equipped reserve armed forces -- is usually controlled by state governors and used typically on US soil in response to natural disasters.

The Guard has not been deployed by a president over the objections of a state governor since 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement.

Deployment of regular troops, such as the Marines, on US soil is even more unusual.

US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force -- absent an insurrection. Speculation is growing that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act giving him a free hand to use regular troops for law enforcement around the country.

The Pentagon said late Monday that Trump had authorized an extra 2,000 state guardsmen to LA.

The state of California has sued to block the use of the Guard troops and Newsom said he would also sue against the Marines deployment.