Lukashenka Says He and Putin Often Argue ‘Jokingly’ over Who is ‘Bigger Dictator’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 19 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka, long identified by many in the  West as “the last dictator in Europe,” told a Belarusian youth conference that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin often argue “jokingly” with one another as to which of them is now “the bigger dictator.”

            The issue shouldn’t be the occasion for levity but rather one for more serious reflection about how the meme that Lukashenka was “the last dictator in Europe” served the interests of both him and Moscow and kept many in the West from recognizing the larger dictatorship Putin has put in place (echofm.online/news/lukashenko-rasskazal-o-shutochnyh-sporah-s-putinym-o-tom-kto-iz-nih-bolshij-diktator).

            Lukashenka, of course, benefited from this moniker because in many cases, it was the only thing that Western commentaries mentioned about Belarus and kept both Lukashenka and his country in the news. Putin benefited because it kept people from focusing on how the Kremlin leader was building a dictatorship far more thorough-going than Lukashenka’s.

            And it hurt the West not only because it prevented many from seeing what was happening in Russia but also elsewhere in the post-Soviet state, keeping alive the notion that as long as leaders didn’t call themselves communists or celebrated and sought to keep alive or revive the Soviet past, everything was fine.

            It is thus no wonder that Lukashenka and Putin were joking about this identification; but it is virtually certain that the real reasons they were laughing were not the ones Lukashenka implied but rather the benefits both dictators have received because others failed to look at their two regimes and those in some other  post-Soviet states with the attention they deserved.