 The people of Belarus can oust Lukashenko, who supports Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has welcomed thousands of Russian troops to his country, allowed the Kremlin to use it to launch the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and offered to station some of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons there. But he has avoided having Belarus take part directly in the fighting for now, Associated Press wrote it. Analysts and political opponents say that further involvement over Ukraine could rekindle public anger against him and erode his iron-fisted grip on power that has lasted for nearly 29 years. Lukashenko, who meets regularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has relied on the Kremlin's political and economic support to survive months of protests, mass arrests and Western sanctions following an election in 2020 that kept him in power and was widely seen at home and abroad as rigged. Russia's invasion is deeply unpopular in Belarus, which shares a 1,000-kilometer border with Ukraine and has many citizens with family or personal ties there. Belarusian military analyst Aliaksander Alessin said that if the country's 45,000 member army is sent into Ukraine, there might be mass refusals to follow orders. While agreeing to station some of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons in his country, Lukashenko cast the move as protection against what he described as NATO's aggressive plans and Western plots against his government. Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsiikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko in the 2020 election after her activist husband was jailed, told Associated Press that hosting Russian nuclear weapons would turn the Belarusian people into hostages. The deployment of Russian nuclear weapons will make Belarus a target in case of an escalation and seriously jeopardize Belarusian lives. Said Tsiikhanouskaya, who fled the country after the election and has become a fierce critic in exile of Lukashenko, the two dictators have gone too far in their war games and it will only lead to the toughening of Western sanctions.