When school started this year for Mikalay in Belarus, the 15-year-old discovered that his teachers and administrators no longer called him by that name. Instead, they referred to him as Nikolai, its Russian equivalent.

Belarus, which has created a political and military alliance with Moscow, is being further Russified as schools ditch the Belarusian language.

Authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko derides his native language, saying “nothing great can be expressed in Belarusian.”