MINSK, Belarus -- The authoritarian president of Belarus made a dramatic show of defiance Sunday against the protests demanding his resignation, toting a rifle and wearing a bullet-resistant vest as he strode off a helicopter that landed at his residence while demonstrators massed nearby.
In the 15th day of the largest and most determined protests ever in independent Belarus, a crowd of about 200,000 rallied against President Alexander Lukashenko in a square in Minsk, the capital. They then marched to another rally and approached the Independence Palace, the president's working residence.
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Video from the state news agency Belta showed a government helicopter landing on the grounds and Lukashenko getting off holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-type automatic rifle. No ammunition clip was visible in the weapon, suggesting that Lukashenko, who cultivates an aura of machismo, aimed only to make a show of aggression.
Protests started Aug. 9 after a presidential election that officials say handed the 65-year-old Lukashenko his sixth term in office with 80% voter approval. Opponents claim the results are fraudulent.
The size and duration of the protests have been unprecedented for Belarus, a former Soviet republic of 9.5 million people that Lukashenko has ruled harshly for 26 years.
On Sunday afternoon, an opposition rally overflowed Minsk's sprawling 17-acre Independence Square. There were no official figures on crowd size, but it appeared to be about 200,000 people or more.
The demonstrators then marched to another square about 1½ miles away and approached the edges of the presidential grounds, where police in full riot gear stood shoulder-to-shoulder, holding large shields.
The protesters dispersed in the evening amid rain.
There were no immediate reports of arrests. Earlier this month, some 7,000 people were arrested at protests, many of them badly beaten with clubs or wounded by rubber bullets, violence that only caused public outrage to swell.
Lukashenko appears to be flailing about for a strategy to counter the anti-government demonstrations.
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He has repeatedly blamed Western interference, claimed the protests were backed by the United States and accused NATO of building up troop concentrations in Poland and Lithuania on Belarus' western border, which the alliance denies. He also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to offer security assistance to his government to quell the protests if he asked for it.
Lukashenko has consistently repressed opposition during his time in office, and weariness with his hard-line rule, as well as dismay over the country's deteriorating economy and Lukashenko's cavalier dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, appear to have galvanized opponents.
"Belarus has changed. Lukashenko has been able to unify everybody, from workers to intelligentsia, in the demand for change," said protester Slava Chirkov, who attended Sunday's demonstration with his wife and son.
They held a sign declaring "Lukashenko, your milk has gone sour," referencing his former job as director of a Soviet-era collective farm.
"Are you going to work for a dictator? Strike -- that's our answer," Sergei Dilevsky, leader of a strike committee at the Minsk Tractor Works, one of Belarus' largest industrial enterprises, told protesters at Sunday's second rally site.
SHOW OF SUPPORT
Also Sunday, more than 50,000 Lithuanians joined hands in a human chain stretching 20 miles from the capital of Vilinus to the Belarus border to express solidarity with their neighbor's dramatic struggle for democracy.
The event, dubbed "the Freedom Way," resembled another historic event on Aug. 23, 1989, when more than a million people in the nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed the Baltic Way, a human chain stretching from Vilnius to Tallinn, to demand an end to Soviet occupation.
The message Sunday was similar: The people of Belarus deserve elections that are free, fair and democratic.
"Thirty years ago, Lithuania broke its shackles of oppression, showing the world that we are free and, first of all, free in our spirit. Today, the time has come for our Belarusian brothers to say the dear word 'freedom,'" Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.
He was one of many prominent Lithuanians who joined the event, along with former Presidents Valdas Adamkus and Dalia Grybauskaite, diplomats and military officers from dozens of countries.
Information for this article was contributed by Yuras Karmanau, Jim Heintz, Luida Dapkus and staff members of The Associated Press.
