Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko will pay his first visit to Myanmar at the invitation of coup leader Min Aung Hlaing “in the near future,” the regime announced Tuesday.
The curt announcement seems timed to lend a veneer of international legitimacy to Myanmar’s impending election, which has been widely denounced as a sham.
Bloomberg reported that the date was not announced for “security reasons.”
Naypyitaw and Minsk have been deepening ties in the arms trade, diplomacy, trade, and investment. Lukashenko, often dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” and no stranger to contested polls, will also dispatch election observers to Myanmar.
Min Aung Hlaing met Lukashenko in Belarus as far back as 2014 and again in March this year, around the time when he first floated the idea of holding the election at the end of 2025 or early 2026.
The two also met in June at the Europe–Asia Economic Forum in Minsk and have crossed paths at various authoritarian-friendly gatherings, from Russia’s Victory Day parade to Shanghai Cooperation Organization summits and Moscow’s World Atomic Week.
Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov visited Naypyitaw in January, while junta election officials traveled to Minsk to “study” Belarusian voting systems, which invariably return Lukashenko to office.
A close ally of Russia, Belarus established diplomatic ties with Myanmar in September 1999 under former dictator Than Shwe. Since then, Minsk has sold fighter jets and other weapons to the Myanmar military. After the 2021 coup, Belarus stood firmly with Russia in backing the junta, even voting against UN resolutions condemning the regime.
In 2023, the junta opened a consulate in Minsk, expanding cooperation in arms sales, diplomacy, trade, and investment.
