Amid swirling rumors in regards to the well being of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, state news media on Monday launched pictures of him, an obvious try and tamp down hypothesis that he was significantly unwell.
Mr. Lukashenko, a key Kremlin ally who often receives fawning every day protection from state-controlled news media that includes images and movies, had not been proven since final Tuesday, when he attended occasions in Moscow and the Belarusian capital, Minsk, celebrating the Soviet Union’s conquer Nazi Germany in 1945.
He skipped an annual ceremony on Sunday in Minsk for Belarus’s flag day, an occasion at which he often speaks, leaving his prime minister to learn an announcement.
Europe’s longest serving chief and an avid sportsman, Mr. Lukashenko, 68, has since 1994 dominated Belarus, a former Soviet republic that relies on Moscow for monetary support and safety help, with a agency grip. In the previous he has relished exhibiting off his strong good well being in public by rollerblading, enjoying ice hockey, and giving lengthy speeches outdoor, whatever the climate.
But the official Belarusian news company, Belta, and state tv had for the previous week recycled previous pictures and movie clips of him.
Ukrainian officers and media fed a swirl of gleeful rumors across the well being of Mr. Lukashenko, who’s extensively reviled in Ukraine for permitting Russia to make use of Belarus, which borders each nations, as a staging floor for its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
An opposition news outlet, Euroradio, reported that Mr. Lukashenko had been taken by motorcade to a Minsk clinic on Saturday, however the nation has not formally commented on his well being.
In what might be probably the most conclusive signal that he was unwell, although maybe not gravely, Russia’s tightly managed news media — which not often touch upon leaders’ well being — have in current days reported that Mr. Lukashenko is unwell, citing Konstantin Zatulin, a senior Russian legislator who works carefully with Belarus and different former Soviet republics.
Mr. Zatulin was quoted as saying of Mr. Lukashenko that “he just got sick but it is not Covid.” He gave no particulars and downplayed the severity of Mr. Lukashenko’s situation.
On Monday, Belta stated that Mr. Lukashenko visited an air drive command publish and printed what it stated have been images of the chief that day. It was not instantly doable to independently verify whether or not the images have been taken on Monday.
The intense secrecy of closed international locations like Belarus and Russia permits wild rumors about their leaders to take flight. For occasion, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is frequently rumored to have a number of deadly illnesses.
The secrecy additionally makes it troublesome to clarify the deaths of apparently wholesome officers, like Vladimir Makei, the veteran Belarusian international minister whose sudden demise in November set off feverish hypothesis of doable foul play.
Nataliia Novosolova and Riley Mellen contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com