Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makej has died unexpectedly at the age of 64. Makej was a longtime companion of the authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and has been Foreign Minister since 2012. He was previously Lukashenko's chief of staff and presidential adviser. The authorities did not name a cause of death on Saturday; Nothing was publicly known about possible chronic illnesses of the politician.
The government in Belarus has been criticized by the West for an increasingly harsh crackdown on the opposition and dubious presidential elections. The fact that Minsk allowed Russian troops to attack Ukraine from Belarusian soil was also met with sharp criticism in the West. In September, Makej defended his country's stance before the UN Security Council in New York. Belarus has been labeled an "accomplice of the aggressor" but has never spoken out in favor of war, he said. "But we are not traitors either," he explained, referring to the close alliance between Belarus and Russia.
The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Moscow that employees of the ministry were concerned about the news of Makej's death.