Opposition protesters turned out in their tens of thousands in Minsk, while supporters of Alexander Lukashenko also held rallies

Alexander Lukashenko claims Vladimir Putin has offered him ‘comprehensive help’

Tens of thousands of Belarusians have gathered in Minsk for the biggest protest in the country’s history, as an extraordinary week of rising sentiment comes to a close.

Seven days after the country’s authoritarian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed to have secured 80% of the vote in a presidential election, his legitimacy is in tatters and his regime faces its biggest crisis since he came to power 26 years ago. The mood at Sunday’s rally was stoked further by egregious police violence against thousands of protesters earlier in the week.

After police beat up demonstrators, flower-waving women take to streets demanding change

The first chain of women appeared on Wednesday: a few hundred brave souls, dressed in white and holding aloft flowers, in a quietly powerful response to the gruesome violence inflicted on thousands of Belarusians over the previous days.

By the next afternoon, columns of flower-waving women were everywhere, parading along the broad avenues of central Minsk smiling, laughing and resolutely demanding political change.

President Lukashenko claims demonstrators are pawns of foreign powers as he attempts to retain grip on country

• Women in Belarus take protests into their own hands
• ‘It’s like a war’: armed men roam streets of Minsk

The standoff in Belarus appeared to be entering a decisive phase on Friday evening, as tens of thousands of protesters marched towards government buildings in central Minsk, holding flowers and signs demanding an end to violence and the resignation of president Alexander Lukashenko.

In a sign that more violence could be imminent, an angry Lukashenko appeared on television on Friday evening, ordering Belarusians not to take to the streets. “You are being used, and our children are being used, as cannon fodder,” he said, blaming shadowy forces from “Poland, the Netherlands and Ukraine” who had arrived in Russia and mentioning the anti-Kremlin politician Alexei Navalny. “Aggression against the country has already started,” he said.

Svetlana Alexievich warns of ‘civil war’ after unrest that followed Sunday’s disputed election result

Belarusian Nobel prize-winning writer Svetlana Alexievich has condemned police violence against protesters in her country and urged Alexander Lukashenko to go peacefully.

The 72-year-old author won the 2015 Nobel literature prize for her work chronicling the horrors of war and life under the repressive Soviet regime including the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Experts compare situation with 1989 revolutions that toppled Europe’s communist regimes

For a man who has spent a quarter of a century building a political brand based on stability, there is no doubt that the events unfolding in Minsk will change politics in Belarus and the standing of its veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko forever.

What is not yet clear is whether the new political era that will follow the protests will be one of dynamic change and a new government, or one of a sustained and bloody crackdown.

Riot police deployed in Minsk and about 20 other cities in some of the biggest clashes in the country’s history

• Opposition candidate comes out of hiding as Belarus votes

Clashes broke out in cities across Belarus on Sunday evening as riot police used rubber bullets, flash grenades, teargas and water cannons to quash protests against the results of the contested presidential election.

Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled for 26 years, claimed he had won a landslide victory in an election marred by accusations of vote-rigging. The election commission claimed Lukashenko was ahead with 82% of the vote in preliminary results on Sunday evening. The opposition, led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, had held some of the country’s largest political rallies since the days of the Soviet Union.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo challenge president’s 25-year rule

Three women are spearheading a maverick opposition campaign for next month’s presidential election in Belarus, transforming the country’s politics as they attempt to unseat Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled for 25 years.

At their head is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a reluctant candidate who has grown increasingly confident in her challenge to Lukashenko.