Via DW (https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-macron-talks-france-offers-eu-mediation-in-belarus-including-russia/a-54639160)…
The leaders of Germany and France discussed the worsening political crisis in Belarusduring talks at French President Emmanuel Macron’s summer retreat on the Cote d’Azur on Thursday.
The fate of of Belarus may lie with Russian integration, writes Craig Murray. But Lukashenko is not “Putin’s man.”
Craig MURRAY
There is a misperception in western media that Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s man. That is not true; Putin views him as an exasperating and rather dim legacy. There is also a misperception in the West that Lukashenko really lost the recent election. That is not true. He almost certainly won, though the margin is much exaggerated by the official result.
Johanna Ross, journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland…
Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko may have won a solid victory with 80.23% of the vote, according to the election commission, but the ground on which he is standing is not as firm as it once was. The President of Belarus says a hybrid war is being waged against his nation by outside forces; opposition activists claim he has rigged this weekend’s election result.
Democratic values, once a bright idea, have become a stone on the neck of Europe, which is dragging it into the abyss of chaos. Now there is a chance to fix it.
Alexander Lukashenko: Belarus and Russia adequately respond to NATO buildup on the borders of our Union Russians keep saying that NATO is in a process of deploying new armies on
