Lukashenko and Putin enjoy widespread support. Belarus has essentially zero poverty and zero unemployment. He has been in power for 27 years. Does popular suppo

Lukashenko and Putin enjoy widespread support. Belarus has essentially zero poverty and zero unemployment. He has been in power for 27 years. Does popular support justify tyranny, be it from COVID lockdown or to preserve a dictatorship? What has changed in the last year to prompt these protests against him anyway? The obvious answer is nothing, that the agitation is stirred up by the West, perhaps since he didn't bend the knee and agree to COVID lockdowns despite being offered $940 million: https://eng.belta.by/president/view/belarus-president-unwilling-to-accept-additional-terms-to-get-foreign-loans-131164-2020/ https://eng.belta.by/president/view/belarus-president-unwill... Meanwhile, lockdown in the West has clearly failed - Sweden and Ukraine, with weak or no lockdowns, have a lower per-capita deathtoll than countries that did lockdown: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... And deaths are only up 6% YoY in Sweden and Ukraine, basically in line with the aging of the population and the effects of a once-a-decade flu variant (similar in mortality to Swine Flu wave in 2009). The West is trying to start another color revolution in Belarus, as they did in Ukraine, where the US Government officials were on the street handing out sandwiches to protestors. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1213/Russia-cries-foul-over-Western-embrace-of-Ukraine-s-demonstrators https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1213/Russia-crie... Is Ukraine better off since their revolution? Yes, I think so (I live here). Would Belarus be better off without Lukashenko? Possibly. However, since 2014, several million Ukrainians have fled the country to work in the EU, and a large chunk of territory has been lost. I'm suggest that there are layers of deception and propaganda at work here that we, as intelligent IT personnel, should be aware of if we want to comment on these articles.