Is Lukashenko’s youngest son next in line to rule Belarus?

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s youngest son, Nikolai, has been appearing ever more frequently in the media lately. The 20-year-old, who used to accompany his father on state visits, now appears to be influencing national politics.

Young Nikolai Lukashenko is currently touring the country to play piano concerts for a “unity marathon”—propaganda events to gain support for the nomination of his father to another term in office. The elder Lukashenko has ruled the country for 30 years. An early presidential election is to be held in Belarus on January 26.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared earlier this year that Lukashenko had apologized for the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in spring 2022, Lukashenko’s press secretary Natalia Eismont explained that this was solely due to “an emotional reaction” on the part of his son Nikolai. According to Eismont, Zelenskyy’s number is even stored among Nikolai Lukashenko’s personal contacts. His father made Belarus available to Russian troops to stage the invasion of the neighboring country.

Tagging along since childhood

Nikolai Lukashenko first appeared in public in 2008 at the age of almost four, joining his father for a “nationwide cleaning day” at a Minsk Arena construction site. Later, Lukashenko announced that Nikolai was his third son. The boy’s mother was rumored to be a doctor. Her name is now an open secret: Irina Abelskaya, head of a health center where the country’s leaders receive medical treatment.

From an early age, the Belarusian dictator took his youngest son with him everywhere, from trips around the country to official visits abroad. As a child, Nikolai met US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pope Francis and other world leaders.

In June 2022, he finished school and began studying at Belarusian State University in a “biotechnology” department created especially for him in cooperation with Peking University. This was so that Nikolai could receive diplomas from both institutions, according to his father.

Sanctioned for human rights violations

During the mass protests against the falsification of the presidential election by Alexander Lukashenko in 2020, then 16-year-old Nikolai appeared with his father in full uniform holding a machine gun. He was later present during the interrogation of opposition politician Viktor Babariko and other political prisoners in the Belarusian secret service’s detention center.

Belarus has long been subject to sanctions by western countries for political and human rights violations. In August 2024, on the fourth anniversary of the controversial 2020 elections, Canada placed several people on a sanctions list, including Nikolai Lukashenko. The government in Ottawa cited serious systematic human rights violations following those elections.

In November 2024, Nikolai Lukashenko gave an interview to the Belarusian state media in which he explained that he was like his father: “Some say I am different from my father, but they either don’t know me or don’t know my father. I cannot be an opponent of the state, of the head of state, because I am an absolute copy of him.”

Repositioning in the media

As early as 2007, Alexander Lukashenko, who is the subject of a national personality cult, indicated that he would groom his youngest son as his successor because he was “unique.” Recently, the Belarusian autocrat has spoken of the need for generational change. “We must prepare our children who will take over, protect and cherish Belarus,” he explained on January 7 during a visit to a church in Logoisk, near the capital of Minsk.

“Lukashenko dreams of Nikolai becoming his successor and he makes no secret of this,” says Fyodor Pavlyuchenko, editor-in-chief of the news portal Reform.news and head of a YouTube project that takes a critical look at Lukashenko. “Nikolai has now grown up and his media activities point to a repositioning,” Pavlyuchenko says. He is being presented as a copy of Lukashenko and a potential successor, he adds, saying that propaganda will now serve to drive this message home with Belarusians.

More than just campaign support?

Political scientist Valery Karbalevich, on the other hand, believes that Nikolai Lukashenko’s increased media presence is merely electioneering for his father, and that there are no political plans for the young man. “The question of a successor is only ever on the agenda when a head of state steps down. But Lukashenko has no plans to step down,” Karbalevich says.

Belarus would be similar to other post-Soviet states where sons have succeeded their fathers as head of state only after holding an important position to justify laying claim to power, Karbalevich says. Before taking on the role of president in Azerbaijan, for example, Ilham Aliyev led a major oil company. In Turkmenistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedov also held important positions before becoming president.

But in Belarus, Lukashenko’s eldest son Viktor only heads the National Olympic Committee, which is a social organization, while Nikolai Lukashenko has no official role at all, Karbalevich points out. This leaves little indication that one of Lukashenko’s sons will take over, he says.

‘He will be turned into a prince’

Journalist Pavlyuchenko, on the other hand, believes that holding such a role won’t be necessary for Nikolai Lukashenko to ascend. His father has built up “a whole clan” around his youngest son. “He will be turned into a prince, a deity who has been given everything by nature that many only acquire through a political career,” Pavlyuchenko says. Nikolai Lukashenko’s greatest shortcoming in this scenario is his youth, he adds, calling it a race against time amid uncertainty over how long the president will last before handing over power. In recent years, there have been rumors of ill health surrounding the 70-year-old dictator.

Pavlyuchenko also doesn’t rule out the possibility that Nikolai could face competition from his older brothers Viktor and Dmitry in a succession drama. But they lack the necessary charisma, he adds. “When they appear in front of the cameras, you can see that they are the worse copies of their father.”

This article was originally published in German.