The Polish-based Belarusian opposition news outlet Nexta has published an investigative film about Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s “luxurious life.”
The film, titled Lukashenka. A Golden Bottom, was published on YouTube on March 8.
The investigative material focuses on Lukashenka’s personal expenses and what it describes as Lukashenka’s villas, expensive cars, and gifts he allegedly uses for his own personal needs.
The report says Lukashenka has been offering “protection” to corrupt Belarusian and foreign business people. It mentions, in particular, a luxurious residential compound in Krasnoselskoye near Minsk, which Nexta says is a gift from Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriyev to Lukashenka in exchange for “protection.”
Lukashenka, who has been in power since 1994, publicly said last week that his “only palace” is a tiny house of less than 60 square meters where he was raised by his mother.
Lukashenka has amended the constitution several times during his authoritarian rule that brought Belarus the unwanted moniker “Europe’s last dictatorship.”
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians take to the streets to demand the resignation of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and call for new elections after official results from the August 9 presidential poll gave Lukashenka a landslide victory.
In August 2020, he was officially pronounced the winner of a presidential election for the sixth time, a development that triggered unprecedented mass protests across the country.
Thousands of Belarusians, including dozens of journalists covering the protests, have been detained by the authorities, some handed prison terms, and hundreds beaten in detention and on the streets.
Several protesters have died in the violence, and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some detainees.
On September 23, 2020, Lukashenka held an inauguration ceremony behind closed doors amid public protests, but many EU countries, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada refused to recognize him as Belarus’s legitimate president.
The European Union imposed three sets of sanctions against Belarusian authorities, including Lukashenka, over the rigged presidential poll and ongoing violence and police brutality against peaceful protesters.