EU member states have little problem recognizing regimes like Sisi's, post-crackdowns Iran or indeed Lukashenka's own right until the last summer. Neither of these recently were outcomes of democratic processes with statements from the monitoring institutions acknowledging that. There's hardly a room to lower the bar anymore.

It is hard to see requiring an alternative candidate (whose persecution blew up the country) register a victory in increasingly totalitarian place as anything but deflection. Bailing out on technicality.