The Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the West's unsubstantiated statements on the election in Belarus as interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

MINSK - Reclusive Moscow-allied Belarus will hold a presidential election on Jan 26, with President Alexander Lukashenko set to cruise through to victory unchallenged for a seventh term, prolonging his three-decade authoritarian rule. Mr Lukashenko – a 70-year-old former collective farm boss – has been in power in Belarus since 1994.

Near a border checkpoint between Belarus and Ukraine, anti-tank spikes and concrete pyramids block what was once a bustling road between two peaceful neighbours.

The E.U. has called the election a sham, and President Alexander Lukashenko has said he’s “too busy” to even campaign.

Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery 250 miles east of Moscow in a huge wave of attacks on Russian power plants, say military sources. A large fire exploded at the refinery in Kstovo city in the Nizhny Novgorod region following the attack, the Ukrainian military said, adding it was assessing the scale of damage there.

With many of his political opponents either jailed or exiled abroad, Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” is all but certain to add a seventh term.

Belarusians began voting on Sunday, with President Alexander Lukashenko expected to cruise to victory unchallenged for a seventh term, prolonging his three-decade authoritarian rule.

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.

Belarusians are voting in a closely-managed presidential election that is all but certain to extend the one-man rule of Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994 and Europe’s longest-serving leader.

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