Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's dog - Umka - has more rights than the country's citizens, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a speech in Lithuania.
“In 2020, there was a chance for this to change, and I am sure there will be another chance“, he said in his speech, an excerpt from which was published by UNIAN.
Umka is a spitz breed dog owned by Lukashenko. She first appeared in public on April 25, 2020 during a clean-up campaign in the Gomel region, which the president attended. Since then, she has actively accompanied Lukashenko to international and national events.
According to the Belarusian president, Umka accidentally became his possession after becoming attached to him.
Large-scale protests in Belarus began in August 2020 after the announcement of the results of the presidential election, which protesters believed to be manipulated. At their peak, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Minsk. By 2021, open protests were suppressed with force, with many activists arrested or fleeing the country.
In the summer of 2025, Lukashenko said that he did not want to rule “authoritarianly, dictatorially“, but “it has not worked out yet“. A year earlier, the Belarusian president said that “there is no dictatorship“ in the republic. “This is what I have been afraid of throughout my presidential life“, Lukashenko admitted.
Lukashenko has been president for more than 30 years - since 1994, now in his seventh consecutive term. He is 71 years old. Five years ago, he promised not to run for president again, but he eventually took part in the vote, which ended in early 2025. According to official figures, Lukashenko received 86.82% of the vote.