Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule with a massive win in a presidential election that Western governments have rejected as a sham, according to preliminary results on Monday.

President Donald Trump's new Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that a U.S. citizen imprisoned in Belarus under Joe Biden has since been released.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union rejected the election in Belarus on Sunday as illegitimate and threatened new sanctions. Belarus held an orchestrated vote virtually guaranteed to give 70-year-old autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko yet another term on top of his three decades in power.

President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, has been making signs of reaching out to the West. He is all but certain to win an election on Sunday.

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 o

Belarusians will go to the polls for “presidential elections,” an event seen by many as a “sham,” a “no-choice election” (bezvybory), and little more than a ritual for Aliaksandr Lukashenka, who has been president of Belarus for more than three decades.

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Belarus is on the brink of extending the 30-year rule of its authoritarian leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, who is poised to secure a seventh term in a presidential election slated for January 2025.

The smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko gazed out from campaign posters across Belarus on Sunday as the country held an orchestrated election virtually guaranteed to give the 70-year-old autocrat yet another term on top of his three decades in power.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko declared himself president for his seventh consecutive term in an election on Jan. 26 internationally deemed as neither free nor fair. The Belarusian Election Commission claimed that Lukashenko "won" 86.

Belarus “unilaterally” freed an American woman, Anastassia Nuhfer, from detention, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Sunday.