The man widely known as “Europe’s last dictator” just held a gushing press conference to express his devotion to the president of the United States and tease a potential visit to Florida.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko turned a meeting with journalists Friday into a bizarre lovefest for Donald Trump, boasting to reporters that he had always stood up for the U.S. president when he was going through tough times.
At the televised meeting, he claimed Trump had invited him to visit Florida to discuss a “big deal” the U.S. leader was preparing for Belarus, one that he described as wide-ranging, without offering any specifics.
In both Trump’s first and second terms in the White House, he said, he’d defended the American leader, “so that they didn’t press, didn’t bully Trump.”
He went on to endorse Trump’s long-held grievances about supposedly being unfairly persecuted, declaring himself the only president to openly condemn the attempted assassination of Trump in 2024 and seemingly vying with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the title of the most Trump-loving world leader.
“Yes, Putin rooted for Trump just as much,” he said, but not quite so “publicly.”
“Trump and his people took note of this,” he claimed. He praised the U.S. president for saying whatever’s on his mind, arguing that he’s an “actor” in a good way, along with a “businessman, journalist, economist, and a bit of a politician.”
“I like this approach, because we see the true policies and goals of the American leadership,” he said. “And we see who Americans are. I like that.”
Lukashenko—who throughout his 32-year, corruption-ridden reign has never once held an election that was free or fair, earning him the nickname “Sasha 3 percent” for the amount of actual support he has—also offered his full-throated backing to Trump’s claims the 2020 presidential polls were rigged, and cheered on White House efforts to tighten voting requirements.
“I agree with him that America needs to be saved in terms of elections, so that ballots don’t end up lying under fences or in trash bins somewhere,” he said. Accused of torturing and murdering hundreds, if not thousands of political opponents, Lukashenko added that “shooting the president in the head is completely unacceptable.”
Praise for the Republican president, and from the head of a repressive former communist regime at the far reaches of Eastern Europe, comes as Trump continues to hemorrhage support at home over his increasing authoritarianism and strongman attacks on the world stage.
Those assaults have included his lightning invasion of Venezuela and ongoing war in the Middle East, as well as his threats of military action against historic U.S. allies like Panama, Mexico, Columbia, Canada and the Danish territory of Greenland, the last two being fellow NATO members.
Lukashenko noted that he doesn’t agree with Trump’s war against Iran, calling it a “mistake,” and claimed he had offered his own proposal to the White House on how to end the conflict, though he didn’t elaborate.
The Belarusian tyrant has long been a key ally of Russia’s authoritarian leader, particularly amid global backlash to Putin’s long-running war against Ukraine.
Lukashenko’s wooing of Trump nevertheless comes amid a spate of bizarre developments in Moscow, taken by some analysts as a sign the Russian president’s vice-like grip on power may be under threat.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
