Tag: Alexander Lukashenko

‘Warned Yevgeny Prigozhin Twice but Putin Didn’t Do it’: Belarus Prez Lukashenko

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors. (Prigozhin Press Service via AP/File)

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday said he warned Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin twice to keep an eye out for threats to his life.

Speaking to Belta, Belarus-owned news agency, Lukashenko said that the first time he warned was soon after the Wagner’s forces foiled a bid to march on Moscow to mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The first time was when I phoned him and negotiations (were taking) place while they were marching on Moscow,” Lukashenko said.

Lukashenko told Belta that he told Putin’s former caterer: “Yevgeny, do you understand that you will doom your people and will perish yourself?”

Prigozhin reportedly said: “I will die then, damn it!”

Lukashenko said the second time he warned Prigozhin during a meeting between him, Prigozhin and Dmitriy Utkin, a long-term lieutenant of Prigozhin.

Russian state media outlets this week showed footage of a private plane crashing into a field northwest of Moscow while en route to St. Petersburg. The plane was purportedly carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose private army has been instrumental in the ongoing 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war.

Source: https://www.news18.com/world/warned-yevgeny-prigozhin-twice-but-putin-didnt-do-it-belarus-prez-lukashenko-8552127.html

Belarus jails Nobel winner Bialiatski for 10 years; EU, US protest

Human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, founder of the organisation Viasna (Belarus), receives the 2020 Right Livelihood Award at the digital award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden December 3, 2020. Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency/via REUTERS

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday by a court in his native Belarus which found him guilty of financing protests in a trial condemned by the United States and the European Union as a “sham”.

Bialiatski, 60, was awarded the Nobel prize in October for his work promoting human rights and democracy in a country which President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Russia, has ruled with an iron hand for nearly 30 years, violently locking up his opponents or forcing them to flee.

Footage from the cramped Minsk court showed Bialiatski, who co-founded the Viasna (Spring) human rights group, looking sombre, his hands cuffed behind his back, as he and his co-defendants watched proceedings from a courtroom cage.

Bialiatski, who was arrested in 2021, and three co-defendants were charged with financing protests and smuggling money. Belarusian state news agency Belta confirmed the court had handed down long jail sentences to all the men, including a decade in prison for Bialiatski. He denied the charges against him, saying they were politically motivated.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and the three other activists had been unfairly convicted, describing the court verdict as “appalling”.

“We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them,” she said on Twitter.

The other three men convicted were Valentin Stefanovich, sentenced to nine years, Vladimir Labkovich to seven years, and Dmitry Solovyov, who received eight years but was not present in court.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-court-sentences-nobel-peace-prize-winner-10-years-prison-tass-2023-03-03/
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