it is 45 past the hour. let's take a closer look at the relationship between belarus and russia and how belarus played a critical role in russia's latest invasion of ukraine. belarus, roughly the size of kansas, sits west of russia, north of ukraine, and home to nearly 9.5 million people. belarus was once part of the soviet union, but gained its independence after the soviet union collapsed in 1991. in 1994, alexander lukashenko became the country's first directly elected president. in the years that followed yuk shenco steadily consolidated power and struck a neutral balance between russia and the west. all of that changed in 2020. that was the year that the presidential election, lukashenko claimed was a landslide victory, but it was an election that u.s. and european officials said was neither free