QUOTE OF THE WEEK. (By Dmitry Kamyshev. Vedomosti, April 7, 2015, p. 7. Complete text:) Europe's anymore. There are dictators a bit worse than me, no? I'm the lesser evil already. - Aleksandr Lukashenko, president of Belarus. ... * * * ... These remarks, made in an interview with Bloomberg, are tinged with thinly veiled gloating: I told you so, didn't I? Indeed, during his more than 20-year presidency, Lukashenko has been accused of everything under the sun. His elections are not fair or free, he jails opposition figures, he harshly suppresses civic activism, and he resurrects Soviet-style leadership reminiscent of the old conferences between Communist Party leaders and enterprise directors. ... And they punished him accordingly all these terrible atrocities: Batka1 was declared persona non grata, and the same fate befell his ministers. ... And now? Is anybody in Brussels, Berlin or Paris even the slightest bit worried about the fairness of the upcoming presidential election in Belarus? Does anyone in Europe care about yet another locked-up Belarussian oppositionist or the absolutely Soviet-style crackdown on parasites? And do Western leaders include Lukashenko among the world's three main evils, alongside Ebola and the Islamic State? ... Nope. Turns out everything is relative. Europe is now concerned by the full-scale fighting in the heart of the continent - thousands of civilians killed in southeastern Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of refugees. Against the Ukrainian backdrop, the Belarussian president also looks quite different from how he used to: He is the last dictator anymore, but one of the principal peacemakers, the architect of the Minsk format settlement, and a credible link between the West and Russia. Not surprisingly, in that same interview, he boldly gives advice on how to set up an effective negotiating process and admits that he has personally tried to persuade US representatives to become involved in the Ukrainian conflict resolution process: If the Americans want peace and stability here, they should become involved in this process right away. ... It might seem that while reveling in his new role, Lukashenko sometimes goes a bit too far. At any rate, the hint at Vladimir Putin as the greater evil, which was made in his comment on dictators, sounds a bit too transparent. Nevertheless, the president did name his Russian counterpart. On the other hand, on quite a few other issues he sided with Moscow: He described the [Western] sanctions as an anachronism, categorically denied that Putin has imperial ambitions (he is a man and he understands that in a modern world, this is very dangerous), advised the West not to go over the top and not to shake the stick at Russia, and told [Ukrainian President] Pyotr Poroshenko to establish direct contact with the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics. Asked about the Russian military's involvement in the conflict, he also responded quite diplomatically: Russians are so stupid as to send troops there and expose themselves, even though there are plenty of people in Russia who wish to fight for money or out of ideological considerations. ... As a matter of fact, it's really that important whether Lukashenko is the last or the second-to-last dictator. The most important thing is that he understands better than anyone else the [dictator] who is now playing his old role. ... 1[Lukashenko's nickname, which is Belarussian papa. - Trans.]