Protests, violent clashes in Belarus as ruler cracks down after contested vote

Lukashenko says that he is not a “Western son of a bitch”:“And the real policy of the West has long been known to us. No matter what negotiations the West conducts with me, I fully understand that I am not their son of a bitch. They would gladly chew me up and spit me out. I fully understand that.”Why has Lukashenko recently started using harsher rhetoric toward the United States?Some experts say this is a “part of Lukashenko’s complex political game, which developed after a short period of ‘war