Victory “demonstrates your high political authority,” the Kremlin chief gushes about his counterpart in Minsk.

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Belarus held an orchestrated election over the weekend that the opposition and the EU rejected as a farce, extending President Lukashenko's more than 30 years in power.

Belarusian strongman President Alexander Lukashenko is poised to extend his rule into a fourth decade in a tightly-controlled vote where he faces no opposition.