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The whereabouts of the Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova is unknown even more than a day and a half after her disappearance. While the country’s border guards announced that she intended to travel to Ukraine and that she had been arrested, the opposition announced that she would be removed from the country against her will.
Kolesnikova disappeared without a trace in Minsk on Monday. According to border guards on Tuesday, she is said to have been taken to a border crossing in the south of the country with her employee Ivan Kravtsov and her spokesman Anton Rodnenkow. Consequently, she was arrested to “clarify the circumstances.” No details were given.
The two comrades in arms, who are now in Kiev, told a press conference that Kolesnikova tore up her passport at the border to avoid a forced departure. She then returned to the Belarusian border crossing, where she is said to have been arrested.
His colleagues crossed the border into Ukraine because they feared they would also be arrested. “Marija is a true hero,” Rodnenkow said. You do not want to leave Belarus under any circumstances. The 38-year-old is one of the main leaders of the protests against the authoritarian head of state Alexander Lukashenko.
In an interview with representatives of the Russian state media, he said that Kolesnikova allegedly wanted to flee to Ukraine with her sister. Border officials prevented them from doing so.
Ukraine’s Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko spoke on Facebook of an attempted deportation. “Marija Kolesnikowa could not be deported from Belarus because this brave woman made her deportation across the border impossible.”
An arrest of Kolesnikova would be nothing new: some employees of the opposition coordinating council, of which she is also a member, had previously been arrested or had left the country. Kolesnikova works for former bank director Viktor Babariko, who wanted to run for president.
Tichanovskaya demands his immediate release
In the evening, numerous people gathered in Minsk in solidarity with Kolesnikova. The footage showed how masked forces brutally arrested at least a dozen protesters and dispersed people.
The opposition party Svetlana Tichanowskaja demanded the immediate release of her campaign partner. “The task of the coordinating council is to be a platform for negotiations,” said Tichanowskaja, who faced the head of state and is in the EU country, Lithuania. “There is no other solution and Lukashenko has to acknowledge this.” She couldn’t just take people hostage. She is calling for tougher sanctions against the government, she told a Council of Europe committee.
The background to the protests is the presidential elections of more than four weeks ago. Lukashenko was then declared the winner with 80.1 percent of the votes. However, the opposition considers Tichanovskaya to be the real winner. The vote is criticized internationally for being grossly falsified.
