Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s longest-serving leader, has extended his 31-year rule in Belarus after being declared the winner of a presidential election that his exiled opponents and Western countries have denounced as a sham.

Belarus held an orchestrated election over the weekend that the opposition and the EU rejected as a farce, extending President Lukashenko's more than 30 years in power.

On Monday, the British Foreign Office sanctioned a number of individuals and entities in Belarus in response to the presidential election. Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected for a seventh five-year term with a dictatorial score of over 87% of the vote,