Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s longest-serving leader, has extended his 31-year rule in Belarus after being declared the winner of a presidential election that his exiled opponents and Western countries have denounced as a sham.

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Belarus is a buffer state. That is the geography, and there is no escaping it. But Belarus is not just a buffer. Our country is a geopolitical buffer in the center of Europe. We are exactly on the rift of two worlds.