Syarhei Tsikhanouski arrested shortly after announcing candidacy in rigged 2020 election won by Lukashenko
One of the leaders of Belarus’s opposition movement, Syarhei Tsikhanouski, has been released from jail after being pardoned after almost five years behind bars.
His wife, the exiled politician Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who took over the opposition cause after his jailing, on Saturday shared a video of him smiling and embracing her after his release.
Continue reading...There are fears military will deploy further violence in run-up to any poll, which is unlikely to be viewed as credible
The Myanmar military’s promise to hold elections in December 2025 or January 2026 has been condemned as a “sham” that risks bringing even greater violence.
Myanmar’s military junta announced on Saturday, in comments reported in state media, that it would hold a long-promised election, specifying a timeframe for the first time since seizing power in a 2021 coup.
Continue reading...Putin ally projected to easily secure seventh term in election that US and EU have said could not be free or fair
Alexander Lukashenko was firmly on track to win a seventh five-year term as Belarusian president in an election western governments have rejected as a sham.
An exit poll broadcast on state television projected that Lukashenko would take 87.6% of the vote. The close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had earlier defended his jailing of dissidents and declared: “I don’t give a damn about the west.”
Continue reading...Autocrat makes comment about support for ‘older brother’ Putin as Belarusians vote in ‘sham’ presidential election
Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko said he had “no regrets” about allowing Russia to use his country to invade Ukraine, amid condemnation of the “sham” presidential vote almost certain to extend his 31 years of authoritarian rule.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said on Sunday that the vote was a “bitter day for all those who long for freedom and democracy”.
Continue reading...The 70-year-old former collective farm boss has been in power in reclusive, Moscow-allied Belarus since 1994
Belarusians began voting on Sunday, with president Alexander Lukashenko expected to cruise to victory unchallenged for a seventh term, prolonging his three-decade authoritarian rule.
Lukashenko – a 70-year-old former collective farm boss – has been in power in reclusive, Moscow-allied Belarus since 1994.
Continue reading...Alexander Lukashenko’s law also bars exiled opposition leaders from standing in presidential elections
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a new law granting him lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution and preventing opposition leaders living in exile from running in future presidential elections.
The law theoretically applies to any former president and members of his or her family. In reality, it is only relevant to the 69-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years.
Continue reading...Alexander Lukashenko put forward axis plan during summit with Vladimir Putin in Sochi as rumours of arms deal persist
Alexander Lukashenko has expressed interest in creating a trilateral partnership with Russia and North Korea amid rumours that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un were negotiating an arms deal to sustain Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Belarusian leader made the remarks during a summit with Putin in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where the two held their seventh face-to-face meeting this year.
Continue reading...Polish military says army helicopters crossed eastern flank, adding to tensions caused by proximity of Wagner fighters
Poland has rushed troops to its eastern border after accusing Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, of violating its airspace with military helicopters.
The Belarusian military denied any such violation and accused Poland, a Nato member and one of Ukraine’s most fervent backers in its conflict with Russia, of inventing the accusation to justify a buildup of its troops.
Continue reading...Artist who once depicted authoritarian leader in hell died in ‘unclear circumstances’, his wife says
A Belarusian artist who once dumped manure outside the office of the president, Alexander Lukashenko, has died in prison, where he was serving a five-year sentence.
Ales Pushkin died in the prison in Grodno in western Belarus of an unknown cause, even though the 57-year-old was not known to be sick, the Viasna human rights centre said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Leader of cross-border raids from Ukraine says weapons, not words, are needed to overthrow the regime in Moscow
The commander of the Freedom of Russia Legion says his fighters are planning another cross-border raid into Russia and are seeking to capitalise on disarray inside the Kremlin following the mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“There will be a further surprise in the next month or so,” Caesar, a spokesperson for the anti-Putin paramilitary group, said in an interview with the Observer in Kyiv. “It will be our third operation. After that there will be a fourth, and fifth. We have ambitious plans. We want to free all our territory.”
Continue reading...Belarus president says head of mercenary group behind failed mutiny is in St Petersburg
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who last month brokered a deal to end Wagner’s armed mutiny, has said the head of the mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has returned to Russia.
“As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko told reporters. “Where is Prigozhin this morning? Maybe he left for Moscow.”
Continue reading...Moscow claims paramilitaries have agreed to hand over weapons after failed Rostov uprising
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection.
“Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said in comments first reported by Belta, the country’s national news agency.
Continue reading...Raman Pratasevich was dragged off a plane and imprisoned two years ago. Now he praises the regime he used to denounce
Two years ago, Raman Pratasevich, a young Belarusian dissident blogger, was white-knuckled, begging a Ryanair flight crew not to make an emergency landing at Minsk airport.
He said: “Don’t do this, they will kill me, I am a refugee,” according to a fellow passenger. The plane, escorted by a Belarusian Mig-29 fighter jet sent to force it down, landed anyway. Pratasevich was promptly arrested.
Continue reading...Ales Bialiatski has been in jail for 20 months following mass protests over regime of Alexander Lukashenko
The Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski has been transferred to a notoriously brutal prison in Belarus and has not been heard from in a month, his wife has said.
Natalia Pinchuk said that Bialiatski, who is serving a 10-year sentence, has been kept in an information blackout since his transfer to the N9 colony for repeat offenders in the city of Gorki, where inmates are beaten and subjected to hard labour.
Continue reading...Authorities posted photographs and video on Telegram channel after authoritarian ruler missed events
Belarusian authorities have released photographs and video of Alexander Lukashenko, attempting to put an end to a week of speculation about the authoritarian leader’s health.
The footage showed Lukashenko visiting an army control point, but the ruler’s heavily bandaged arm and hoarse, exhausted voice appeared to confirm rumours that he has been in poor health.
Continue reading...Leader has not been seen publicly in nearly a week, as opposition news outlet says he was taken to an elite clinic on weekend
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who has not been seen in public since 8 May, did not appear at a ceremony in the capital of Minsk on Sunday, triggering speculation the longtime leader is seriously ill.
The prime minister, Roman Golovchenko, read a message from Lukashenko during an annual ceremony at which young people swear allegiance to the ex-Soviet state’s flag, the BelTA state news agency reported.
Continue reading...Although Alexander Lukashenko has agreed to host nuclear bases little construction work seems to have started
Like a lot of what Vladimir Putin says about nuclear weapons, his suggestion that Russia would start storing its bombs in Belarus may add up to less than it appears.
In February last year, Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert, but there was no perceptible change in the country’s nuclear posture, or any unusual movements of its weapons.
Continue reading...Twelve-year sentences for the women condemned as president’s ‘revenge’ while UN report accuses country of possible crimes against humanity
Belarus has handed long jail terms to senior staff at the country’s largest independent news site, which was forced to close after historic demonstrations against strongman Alexander Lukashenko over two years ago.
The verdicts are the latest in a crackdown on journalists, opposition figures and activists who challenged Lukashenko’s claim that he won a sixth presidential term in 2020.
Continue reading...Group says it used drones to hit early warning aircraft at Machulishchy airfield 12km from Minsk
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
BYPOL, the Belarusian partisan organisation, said it had used drones to strike the Machulishchy airfield 12km from Minsk, severely damaging a Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft (Awacs).
Continue reading...President dismisses killing of civilians in Bucha by Russian forces as ‘fake’
Vladimir Putin has insisted that his bloody campaign in Ukraine will continue until its “noble” goals have been achieved, arguing that the invasion was proceeding as planned, despite fierce Ukrainian resistance and heavy losses among Russian forces.
“We will achieve our objectives, there are no doubts,” Putin told workers at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east, in his first public comments on the war since his forces were forced to retreat from northern Ukraine more than a week ago.
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