Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was shown arriving on Sunday evening, in a bulletproof vest and a Kalashnikov assault rifle in hand, at his residence in Minsk located not far from opposition protests.
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The video, posted on Telegram by the Belarusian Presidency, shows Mr Lukashenko, 65, descending from a helicopter after landing on the territory of his official residence, after taking a tour with his son Nikolai, 15, in the above the place where opposition supporters rallied en masse in the afternoon.
“They fled like rats”, launches the Belarusian president, in another video shot during his helicopter flight, while there were no more protesters left in the evening on Independence Avenue, no start of the Sunday demonstration.
According to the images, Mr. Lukashenko, in a bulletproof vest, appears to be wearing a Kalashnikov with a folding butt, without a magazine.
In the afternoon, the mobilization of the opposition on the avenue and the place of Independence, as well as on the adjacent streets, seemed equivalent to that of last week, when some 100,000 people had descended on the street. street in the Belarusian capital on August 16, according to AFP journalists.
But in the evening, with the rain, the protesters dispersed calmly after marching through the city center, according to the same source.
The mobilization against the strong man of Belarus has not weakened since the announcement of the results of the August 9 ballot which had given him the winner with 80% of the votes.
In power for 26 years, Mr. Lukashenko, had sworn this week to “solve the problem” of the dispute, the result of a Western plot according to him, and even put the army on alert, accusing NATO of maneuver at the borders of Belarus.