Comments by "Cinderball" (@cinderball1135) on "Huge protest eclipses President's rally in Belarus" video.

The problem with these dictators is they have no retirement plan - there's no way out for a man who's constructed an entire state around himself. If he leaves power, he's as good as dead. If he's lucky he might find refuge in a foreign country, but more often than not, being unseated is as good as being hauled up in front of a firing squad. Lukashenko knows this, but as someone who never really had to fight to hold onto power before now, he overplayed his hand. He rigged the election so haphazardly, so obviously, that he's completely destroyed his legitimacy. Belarus will be free - he can't kill 80% of his own people. There are so many protestors, that even if he tries to unleash the army on them, those soldiers will have to know they're firing on their own friends and family. TL/DR: Lukashenko is one massive dummy.
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@AnexoRialto Judging by reports, Putin is not in much of a position to help this time. The way the Russians prefer to work is to enter with a base of local support, by driving a wedge between local factions. In Belarus, the population is so unified in its opposition to Lukashenko that, short of annexing Belarus by force (and turning a bad situation into a much worse one for Russia), there's not much Putin can do to aid his erstwhile ally - and he's fallen short of actually sending any troops.
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Few dictators who get overthrown live to tell the tale. When their people learn what they did while in power, it usually ends up with the former ruler up against a wall...
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@emm_arr I've decided to do my best not to get into pointless fights with trolls for the time being. Let's see if I can hold to that resolution. :)
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Russia would probably love nothing better than to intervene, but they need at least the pretense of a divided country so they can go in disguised as locals. That's not possible here - it would be too obvious, because Belarusians are united against Lukashenko.
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