Belarusian political scientist Dmitry Bolkunets wrote on the Telegram app that Lukashenko’s doctors now have a difficult task ahead of them “bring the leader back to his senses, lubricate him, lower his sugar level, eliminate the obvious head shake and move his body to the Minsk square”where the Belarusian parade is held in the evening.

Lukashenko took part in it. Despite tradition, this year’s Belarusian president he did not give a speech in Minsksaid the Meduza portal.

⚡️ Lukashenka was unable to give a speech on Victory Day in Minsk due to his health condition.

Defense Minister Khrenin spoke instead. This is happening for the first time. pic.twitter.com/6WrQyZyHig

— NEXT (@nexta_tv) May 9, 2023

In about four minutes of live coverage broadcast by Belarus’ state agency Belta, Lukashenko can be seen he got out of the car, walked with an impenetrable expression behind a pair of soldiers carrying a huge bouquet of flowers to the monument to the heroes of the Second World War, then arranged them himself and bowed.

Apart from Lukashenka, the presidents also accompanied Putin on the podium in Red Square Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan Kasym-Žomart Tokayev, Sadyr Žaparov, Imomali Rachmon, Serdar Berdymuhamedov, Savkat Mirziyoyev and also Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.

Our Niva noticed that only Tajik President Rakhmon came to the Moscow parade with the St. George ribbon. George, considered a symbol of Russian patriotism and militarism. The presidents of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan prefer flowers with national colors, and Lukashenko likes the apple blossom, which he has made as a symbol of May 9 and of Belarus. The presidents of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and the prime minister of Armenia do without symbols, Naša Niva added.

Today, Putin appreciated the presence in Moscow of the leaders of other post-Soviet countries at the military parade. This presence was interpreted by state television as proof that Russia is not in international isolation, as the West is doing due to the continued aggression of Russian troops in Ukraine.

Minsk is considered Moscow’s closest ally. Although Belarus was not directly involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine, it provided Russia with its territory and airports to attack its neighbors.

In Russia, security forces today detained several people who had shown their opposition to a Russian invasion of Ukraine in the streets while authorities held a traditional military parade in Moscow’s Red Square. This was reported by the OVD Info project, which monitors interventions against regime opponents. In the Leningrad region, police detained 14 people in one of the apartments who had come to an anti-war exhibition.

In Moscow, police arrested a man walking around one of the metro stations in the center with a Ukrainian flag. The man told the OVD Info project that the police beat him, both during the arrest and later in the police car.

According to his words, he was dismissed from the department after the police officer wrote a report, according to which he discredited the Russian army. There may be more crackdowns on activists in Moscow, as the man explained that in the same police station several people were detained for wearing clothes in the colors of the Ukrainian flag or wearing yellow and blue flowers.

The situation at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant Zaporizhia in Ukraine is deteriorating, the Funke media group reported. According to Ukrainian state company Energoatom, Russia will bring more soldiers and military equipment to the nuclear power plant site, according to a Reuters report.

“The situation for equipment and personnel is getting worse,” Energoatom president Petro Kotin told Funke.

For the first time, Lukashenko was unable to give a Victory Day speech in Minsk due to his health condition, wrote Nexta.

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