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A 68-year-old strongman skips his own flag day, and Minsk goes quiet.
Alexander Lukashenko has run Belarus for nearly three decades without missing the country’s biggest patriotic set pieces. On Sunday, May 14, 2023, he missed one of them — the annual State Flag, Emblem, and Anthem Day ceremony in Minsk, where young Belarusians swear allegiance to the state’s symbols. In his place stood Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko, reading a message on the president’s behalf while state media offered no explanation at all.
- Golovchenko delivered Lukashenko’s speech and read his message to attendees at the May 14 State Flag, Emblem, and Anthem Day ceremony in Minsk; state agency BelTA reported his appearance but gave no reason for the president’s absence, and the presidential press service declined to comment.
- Lukashenko has not appeared in public since May 9, when he looked pale and unsteady with a bandaged right hand at Moscow’s Victory Day parade, skipped Putin’s post-parade breakfast, was driven roughly 300 meters instead of walking to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and let Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin deliver his speech back in Minsk that evening.
- Opposition outlet Euroradio reported unconfirmed claims that Lukashenko was admitted to an elite clinic near Minsk on May 13, while Russian Duma lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin told Podyom the president had “simply fallen ill” with a non-COVID condition requiring rest.
The Events of May 14
The ceremony itself is a low-stakes affair by design — a civic ritual where teenagers pledge loyalty to the flag, the emblem, and the anthem. That’s exactly why Lukashenko’s absence stood out. He is a leader who almost never delegates symbolic occasions, and having Golovchenko stand in and read his message rather than appearing by video link or rescheduling suggested something kept him away rather than a simple scheduling conflict. BelTA’s write-up stuck to the facts of the prime minister’s appearance and said nothing about why the president wasn’t there, and Lukashenko’s own press service wouldn’t fill the gap when asked.
The Moscow Warning Signs
The absence didn’t come out of nowhere. Five days earlier, at Russia’s Victory Day parade on May 9, Lukashenko showed up visibly diminished — pale, unsteady on his feet, with a bandaged right hand that went unexplained. He skipped the breakfast Vladimir Putin hosted for visiting leaders after the parade, and instead of walking to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with the rest of the delegation, he was driven the roughly 300 meters. Back in Minsk that night, he laid a wreath at Victory Square but, breaking from his usual habit of speaking at the site himself, had Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin deliver the address for him.
Lukashenko had “simply fallen ill” with a non-COVID condition and needed rest, Russian Duma lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin told Podyom.
Clinic Reports and Official Silence
Euroradio, a Belarusian opposition outlet operating in exile, reported unconfirmed information that Lukashenko was admitted to an elite clinic near Minsk on May 13, one day before he skipped the flag ceremony. Neither Belarusian state media nor the Kremlin has confirmed or denied it. Zatulin’s comment to Podyom is the closest thing to an official-adjacent explanation so far, and even that stopped short of naming a diagnosis. The pattern of tight-lipped state messaging echoes how Belarus has handled other sensitive moments for its government, much like the broader information blackouts that have accompanied tense standoffs elsewhere in the region, including the drawn-out diplomatic maneuvering the BBC detailed around Russia’s confrontation with the West over Ukraine.
The Opposition’s Response
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has positioned herself as Belarus’s legitimate president-in-exile since the disputed 2020 election, used the moment to tell the democratic movement to stay ready for a potential political transition. It’s a notable statement given how closely Lukashenko has tied his own survival to Moscow’s backing since the 2020 protests, a dependency that has only deepened amid the wider standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine.
For now, nobody outside a small circle in Minsk knows exactly what’s wrong with Lukashenko, and nobody in his government is volunteering to say. Golovchenko read the boss’s remarks on Sunday and went back to being prime minister; the next real test of Lukashenko’s condition will be whether he shows up in public himself, or sends someone else again.
Source: www.todayonline.com
Source: www.abc.net.au
Source: www.abc.net.au
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