Belarus

MINSK, September 14. /TASS/: Almost 30 protest activities took place in Belarus on Sunday, the overall number of protesters did not exceed 22,000, Interior Ministry Spokesperson Olga Chemodanova said in a statement on Telegram.

"Twenty-eight protest activities were recorded across the country yesterday, on September 13. The overall number of participants did not exceed 22,000," the statement reads.

According to Chemodanova, "774 people were detained for violating the law on public events." In particular, 500 people were apprehended in the country’s capital of Minsk.

(Reuters) - Maria Kolesnikova’s decision to rip up her passport and risk prison rather than exile has burnished the musician-turned-politician’s status as a hero to the mass protest movement against veteran Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Dozens of people were detained this week as protesters took to the streets chanting her name and holding up placards, some reading “Viva Maria”. Her face was superimposed on the image of a Soviet World War Two poster and projected onto the side of a building in Minsk.

MINSK, September 10. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that he has no intention of ceding power and will not let it 'lie in the mud'.

MINSK, September 9. /TASS/: A member of the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council Maria Kolesnikova has been arrested and placed in a pre-trial detention center in Minsk.

"The head of the investigative group of the Investigative Committee’s main investigation department Vasilyuk called me and informed that she had been arrested," Maria’s father Alexander Kolesnikov said on Wednesday, according to tut.by portal.

MINSK, September 8. /TASS/: Participants in the joint Russian-Serbian-Belarusian Slavic Brotherhood 2020 military exercise will arrive in Belarus between September 10 and September 15, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced in its Telegram channel Tuesday.

"The Slavic Brotherhood 2020 multinational Belarusian-Russian-Serbian military drills will take place at the Brestsky proving ground of the 38th Airborne Brigade," the ministry said. "The participants’ arrival is planned for September 10 to September 15."

MINSK, September 3. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko appointed new head of the State Security Committee (KGB) and the state secretary of the republic’s Security Council.

According to BelTA news agency, Valery Vakulchuk, who until recently chaired the Belarusian KGB, was appointed as the security chief. Ivan Tertel, who headed the State Control Committee, will head the KGB. He will be succeeded by Valery Gerasimov, who earlier served as the first deputy chief of this agency.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Even before the Aug. 9 presidential election in Belarus ended, a poll worker in Minsk said she was asked to sign a document summing up its result, with the vote totals left blank.

Another worker who pointed out violations during the vote-counting was fired on the spot.

In the small city of Vitebsk, a poll worker signed a document with falsified results in favor of President Alexander Lukashenko and later was wracked with guilt for betraying the trust of the voters.

MINSK, August 31. /TASS/: Former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya plans to address the UN Security Council on September 4 and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on September 8, her press service informed on Monday.

MINSK, August 29. /TASS/: The Coordination Council of the Belarusian opposition has called on the republic’s Internal Affairs Minister, Yuri Karaev, either to resign or to turn himself in, Maria Kolesnikova, a member of the presidium of the Coordination Council said during a live broadcast on YouTube on Saturday.

MINSK, August 29. /TASS/: The Belarusian opposition is ready to consider Russia as a mediator if efforts to resolve the political crisis in the country without international assistance fail, former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told Euronews.

"If we need foreign mediation in talks, we will definitely see Russia as one of the participants in the process. Russia is a country we have friendly and close relations with," she said.