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Political scientist KC Suri has attributed the Congress' decline to it becoming a "playground for political entrepreneurs, factions, and wily political satraps" in their relentless "pursuit of power and wealth".

Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus autocrat, has become Mr. Putin’s satrap, and the arrival of nuclear warheads would only subordinate Belarus further to Russia.

Moscow has lost its aura and its grip, creating a disorderly vacuum that previously obedient former Soviet satraps, as well as China, are moving to fill.

Mr. Lukashenko has now become a satrap of Russian President Vladimir Putin, permitting Russian troops to use Belarus as a launchpad for the war against Ukraine.

The referendum revoked the pledge Belarus made to be a non-nuclear state, meaning that Russia could move nuclear weapons onto the territory of its satrap, bordering NATO.