BELARUS

About:

• The country is now at the receiving end of the West’s economic sanctions, meant to deter the Russian assault on Ukraine. The Belarusian border serves as the site for dialogue between Russia and Ukraine to possibly end the war.
  
  
• Historically, Belarus has acted as the site of negotiations between the two nations – two sets of agreements were signed in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in 2014 and 2015 to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
  
  

Key facts:

• Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.
  
  
• Its capital is Minsk.
  
  
• After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus became a sovereign nation, and its first presidential elections were held in 1994. 
  
  
• Alexander Lukashenko has served as the country's first president since 1994. Belarus has been labelled "Europe's last dictatorship" by some Western journalists, on account of the country's poor human rights record and Lukashenko's self-described authoritarian style of government.