“What support Lukashenko has left, certainly the only source of institutional support, is among the security services, broadly defined,” Rajan Menon, a professor of international relations at the City College of New York and a fellow at the non-interventionist Quincy Institute, tells Reason.

Both candidates, then, aren’t exactly who they say they are. “This may be a peace election without a peace candidate,” said Stephen Wertheim, author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy.