Belarus

MINSK, July 27. /TASS/: The creation of a single Russia-Belarus scientific research space will contribute to the real development of the Union State, President of the Kurchatov Institute Scientific Research Center Mikhail Kovalchuk said on Tuesday.

"We are proposing that a single research space be set up and for this purpose we have signed a roadmap with the head of the National Academy of Sciences [of Belarus] today," Kovalchuk said.

MINSK, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the country's border guard to completely close the border with Ukraine, the Belarusian state news agency Belta reported Friday.

"I am astounded by the amount of weapons being smuggled from Ukraine to Belarus," Lukashenko said in his speech dedicated to Belarus Independence Day, according to Belta.

"This is why I've instructed the border guard to fully close the border with Ukraine," he said, adding that only civilians will be able to enter Belarus.

MINSK, June 29. /TASS/: The ultimate goal of external forces is regime change in Belarus, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said after a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk on Tuesday.

"Their [the external forces’] ultimate goal is to change the structure and power in Belarus. We have been witnessing this lately," the Belarusian state-run news agency BelTA quoted Patrushev as saying.

MINSK, June 27. /TASS/: A Belarusian emergencies ministry helicopter had a crash landing in the Brest region, no one was hurt, BelTA reported on Sunday, citing the country’s emergencies ministry.

"A Mi-2 helicopter of the Belarusian emergencies ministry, which was on a forest surveying mission, made a crash landing near the village of Chderebasovo, Brest region. The crew of two managed to leave the rotorcraft. They were not hurt but, nevertheless, will be examined by medics," it said.

The helicopter received mechanical damages. An investigation is underway.

MINSK, June 10. /TASS/: Russian Ambassador to Belarus Yevgeny Lukyanov is surprised that Belarus, along with Russia, has been added to the list of the countries that pose a threat to the West.

"NATO’s secretary-general is actually talking about the threat to the collective West and the world coming from Russia. Now Belarus has been added to that list, this is something new," he told reporters on Thursday.

MINSK, June 5. /TASS/: Sanctions against Belavia should be viewed as an attempt to strangle the Belarusian air carrier and to take over the air travel market, Artem Sikorsky, head of the Belarusian Transport Ministry’s aviation department, said in a televised interview on ONT channel on Saturday.

"A strangulation process is underway. To put it bluntly, those sanctions are a hostile takeover of the market and the business of the carrier that did not take any part in those events (the emergency landing of the Ryanair flight - TASS)," the official said.

(Reuters) --- Belarus carriers will be banned from flying over European Union territory or having access to its airports from Friday, the bloc said, as the country's exiled opposition leader called for more joint Western sanctions.

The EU decision is part of planned punitive measures against Belarus in response to Minsk scrambling a warplane to force the landing on May 23 of a Ryanair flight carrying an opposition journalist, who was then arrested. 

(Reuters) --- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told his Russian counterpart that the investigation into Sofia Sapega, the detained girlfriend of an arrested dissident blogger, would take place in Belarus, the state-run Belta news agency said on Tuesday.

Sapega, a Russian citizen, was detained alongside her boyfriend Roman Protasevich on May 23 after their plane was forced to land in Minsk.

MINSK, May 31. /TASS/: The Minsk City Court on Monday dismissed the complaint filed over the detention of Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, TASS reports from the courtroom.

"[The court] hereby rules to dismiss the complaint of the defense attorney, lawyer Filanovich, relating to Sofia Sapega. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed," the judge said.

The hearing was held without the detained Russian woman.

(Reuters) --- Belarus's leading opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Monday that detained blogger Roman Protasevich had been beaten and tortured in jail.

A lawyer who visited Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega said he was fine, "but it's doubtful, because for sure he was tortured, for sure he was beaten", she told reporters at a news conference in Tallinn.