OpenDemocracy has an interesting piece by Mikhail Zakharov of polit.ru, which takes a look at the Medvedev-Lukashenko spat – noting that the Kremlin is giving the President of Belarus much of the same treatment received by Viktor Yushchenko in the Ukraine in the lead up to the elections which shoved him out of office.

Elections in Belarus are scheduled for 19 December, and the current president has a full field of opponents. Besides Lukashenko, declared candidates include Viktor Tereshchenko, Chair of the Association for Small and Medium Enterprise; Vladimir Provalsky, an entrepreneur; Vladimir Neklyaev, director of the ‘Dvizhenie Vpered’ (‘Forward Movement’) research institute; Yaroslav Romanchuk, director of Strategy research centre; Sergei Ryzkkov, financial director of Vitebsk fruit and vegetable complex; Andrei Sannikov, a newspaper political commentator;  Alexei Mikhalevich, a legal consultant; businessman Dmitry Ussm, Grigory Kostusev, deputy director of a construction company; Grigory Kostusev, chair of the Liberal Democratic Party; Vitaly Rimashevsky, deputy chairman of “Christian Business Initiative”; Nikolai Statkevich,  leader of the Social Democratic party; Ivan Kulikov, head of a nuclear research lab; Petr Borisov, a pensioner; and Sergei Ivanov, currently unemployed.