But I don’t think she is the legitimate head of the European Union’s diplomatic service. This is what I believe. It is democratic. She has her beliefs. I have mine.”

On the occasion of the presidential elections held in the country on Sunday (26 January), High Representative/Vice President Kaja Kallas (pictured, left) and Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos issued the following statement: “Today’s sham elections in Belarus were neither free nor fair.

No credible opponents were allowed to run against Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since the 1990s.

Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election Western governments rejected as a sham.

The European Union will not lift sanctions against the government of Belarus's autocrat Alexander Lukashenko following the country's "sham" presidential elections, the bloc's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Sunday.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is all but certain to extend his more than three decades in power in Sunday’s election that is rejected by the opposition as a farce after years of sweeping repressions.

The European Union rejected the election in Belarus on Sunday as illegitimate and threatened new sanctions.Belarus held an orchestrated vote virtually guaranteed to give 70-year-old autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko yet another term on top of his three decades in power.

Europe’s longest-serving leader won re-election in a contest widely believe to have been rigged. The result cements the power of a leader whose country is considered Russia’s staunchest ally.

President Donald Trump's new Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that a U.S. citizen imprisoned in Belarus under Joe Biden has since been released.

The EU's top diplomat said Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who is certain to win a seventh presidential term in Sunday's election after barring most opponents, "doesn't have any legitimacy".

MINSK (Reuters) -Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that some of his political opponents had "chosen" to go to prison as he cast his vote in a election that was set to extend his 31-year rule.

“Today’s sham election in Belarus has been neither free, nor fair,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said in a joint statement. “The relentless ...