[Cheburashka]

Even if, Putin would like to replace him to puppet loyal to Kremlin. Otherwise he still prefer Luka.
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Even if the successor were a Putin puppet, he would still be closer to an actual democrat than Lukashenko. And who can say that given the opportunity to really choose, the Belarusian people will choose Putin's puppet?

And Putin's time as President of Russia grows short. He only has a year and a half left. And he's no political magician, as far as manipulating foreign countries to his will.

[Lukasz]

Probably such guy would replace communism to post-communist social-“wild capitalism”, in other words oligarchy. Wherever this is better is questionable.