[ad_1]
Russia annexed Crimea after illegal referendum on March 16, 2014… Ukraine and most of the countries of the world do not recognize the accession of the peninsula to the Russian Federation. At the moment, there is a checkpoint regime between mainland Ukraine and Crimea, and Kiev does not de facto control the peninsula.
Mass protests have been going on in Belarus since August 9. The protesters believe that the results of the presidential elections were falsified. According to official data, current President Alexander Lukashenko won with 80.1% of the voters. Opposition candidate Tikhanovskaya came in second with 10.1% of the vote. At the same time, alternative exit polls showed the opposite picture: Tikhanovskaya’s confident victory.
The Belarusian security forces violently dispersed the demonstrations, in particular with the use of stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannons. During the protests, about 10,000 protesters were detained and hundreds were injured and wounded. According to official figures, killed four protesters.
On September 8, the Belarusian border service said that Rodnenkov, Kravtsov and also Maria Kolesnikova were passing the border check on the border between Belarus and Ukraine in the morning. Initially, the representative of the Belarusian State Border Committee, Anton Bychkovsky, said that the three had crossed the border. He then said that Kolesnikov was “kicked” out of the car at the border, while Rodnenkov and Kravtsov managed to escape to Ukraine.
The State Border Service of Ukraine reported that Rodnenkov and Kravtsov are now in Ukraine, and Kolesnikova did not arrive at the Ukrainian checkpoint. Kolesnikova, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko, could not be expelled, because “this brave woman took steps to prevent her movement across the border.” The opponent tore her passport while trying to forcibly remove her from Belarus.
Lukashenko claimed that Kolesnikova “really wanted to flee” to Ukraine because she allegedly had a sister there. According to him, Belarus is asking Ukraine to extradite Rodnenkov and Kravtsov. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry stressed that the opposition was forcibly expelled to discredit the Belarusian opposition.
[ad_2]
