MINSK: Strongman Alexander Lukashenko demanded an explanation from Moscow on Wednesday after Belarus arrested Russian mercenaries allegedly plotting to destabilize the country ahead of next month’s presidential election.
The surprise announcement is just the latest twist in an extraordinary election campaign that has seen the 65-year-old leader, who has dominated Belarus for nearly three decades, jail his key would-be rivals ahead of the vote.
“It is necessary to immediately turn to appropriate Russian structures so that they explain what is going on,” Lukashenko told the head of the KGB security service at an emergency meeting.
Earlier in the day the Belarus security service arrested a group of 32 Russian fighters allegedly plotting to destabilize the country.
KGB chief Valery Vakulchik told Lukashenko that the detained men were members of the Wagner group, a shadowy private military firm that is reportedly controlled by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and promotes Moscow’s interests in Ukraine, Syria, and Libya.
The arrests came less than two weeks before Belarus holds a tense presidential election on August 9, in which Lukashenko is seeking a sixth term, as public discontent builds over his policies.
Ahead of the polls, opposition protests have erupted across the ex-Soviet country of 9.5 million people, with a 37-year-old woman political novice, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, quickly emerging as Lukashenko’s main rival.
Lukashenko has accused some of his critics of being controlled by “puppeteers” in Moscow.
State news agency Belta said the authorities had received information about the arrival of 200 fighters in Belarus “to destabilize the situation during the election campaign.”
Belta said the detained men sported “military-style clothing” and carried heavy cases.
The state news agency also said the alleged militants gave themselves away because unlike ordinary Russian tourists, they did not drink.
“They did not consume alcohol or visit entertainment venues, they kept to themselves in order not to attract attention,” Belta said, adding that the men stayed at one of the country’s sanatoriums.
National television showed several Russian passports that allegedly belong to the detained men, as well as stacks of dollar bills, packets of condoms and pieces of paper with Arabic script.
The men appeared to also have Sudanese pounds on them.
Some commentators suggested that the detained Russian fighters might have used Belarus as a transit point and were en route to Africa.
Unlike Russia, Belarus has kept its borders open during the coronavirus pandemic and operates flights as usual.
Russian author Zakhar Prilepin, who fought alongside Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, said he knew some of the detained men.
“There are several fighters from our battalion,” said Prilepin.
Prilepin said on Facebook that the fighters were probably en route to “some other destination,” which Belarus “surely knows very well,” suggesting that the detentions were a carefully-scripted affair.
The ex-Soviet country’s security service has a history of exposing alleged foreign plots to destabilize the country before major elections.
The Russian embassy in Minsk said it had been notified of the detention of 32 Russian nationals.
Russia is Minsk’s closest political and economic ally but relations have been strained.
In recent years, Lukashenko has been under increasing pressure to inch closer to Russia but the Belarus leader has rejected the idea of outright unification with Moscow.
In a separate development, Belarus also arrested Vitali Shkliarov, a high-profile Washington-based strategist who has advised presidential candidates in US, Russia and Ukraine.
Citing the security service, Belarusian television said Shkliarov had advised Tikhanovskaya’s husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, one of Lukashenko’s would-be rivals, who is now in jail.
“It seems that Belarus is heading into a period of extreme political flux,” said Timothy Ash, a strategist at BlueBay Asset Management.
“Lukashenko has the fight of his life on in these elections,” he said, adding that the detention of Russians might give the leader the excuse to either further clamp down on the opposition or cancel the election altogether.
Belarus officials said they were convening an emergency meeting of all election candidates on Thursday morning.
Belarus demands Russian explanation over ‘Wagner mercenaries’
https://arab.news/y57pf
Belarus demands Russian explanation over ‘Wagner mercenaries’
- Some commentators have suggested that the detained Russian fighters might have been using Belarus as a transit point and were en route to Africa
- The ex-Soviet country’s security service has a history of exposing alleged foreign plots to destabilize the country before major elections
Pope slams ‘cruelty’ of strike killing Gaza children
- ‘Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches my heart’
“Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches my heart,” he told an audience of members of the government of the Holy See.
Rival protests in Seoul over South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol
- Yoon Suk Yeol’s presidential powers are suspended but he remains in office
- He has not complied with various summonses by authorities investigating whether martial law
SEOUL: Demonstrators supporting and opposing South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held rival protests several hundred meters apart in Seoul on Saturday, a week after he was impeached over his short-lived declaration of martial law.
Yoon’s presidential powers are suspended but he remains in office. He has not complied with various summonses by authorities investigating whether martial law, which he declared late on Dec. 3 and rescinded hours later, constituted insurrection.
He has also not responded to attempts to contact him by the Constitutional Court, which decides whether to remove him from office or restore his presidential powers. The court plans to hold its first preparatory hearing on Friday.
Saturday’s pro- and anti-Yoon protests were held in Gwanghwamun in the heart of the capital. There were no clashes as of 4 p.m. (0700 GMT).
Tens of thousands of anti-Yoon protesters, dominated by people in their 20s and 30s, gathered around 3 p.m., waving K-Pop light sticks and signs with sayings such as “Arrest! Imprison! Insurrection chief Yoon Suk Yeol” to catchy K-pop tunes.
“I wanted to ask Yoon how he could do this to a democracy in the 21st century, and I think if he really has a conscience, he should step down,” said 27-year-old Cho Sung-hyo.
Several thousand pro-Yoon protesters, chiefly older and more conservative people opposing Yoon’s removal and supporting the restoration of his powers, had gathered since around midday.
“These rigged (parliamentary) elections eat away at this country, and at the core are socialist communist powers, so about 10 of us came together and said the same thing — we absolutely oppose impeachment,” said Lee Young-su, a 62-year-old businessman.
Yoon had cited claims of election hacking and “anti-state” pro-North Korean sympathizers as justification for imposing the martial law, which the National Election Commission has denied.
Pakistan militant raid kills 16 soldiers: intelligence officials
- Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement it was staged ‘in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan militants launched a brazen overnight raid on an army post near the Afghan border, two intelligence officials said Saturday, killing 16 soldiers and critically wounding five more.
“Over 30 militants attacked an army post” in the Makeen area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, one senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. “Sixteen soldiers were martyred and five were critically injured in the assault.”
“The militants set fire to the wireless communication equipment, documents and other items present at the checkpoint,” he said, before retreating from the two-hour assault which took place 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Afghan border.
A second intelligence official also anonymously confirmed the same toll of dead and wounded.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement it was staged “in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders.”
Myanmar ethnic rebels say captured junta western command
- Ann would be the second regional military command to fall to ethnic rebels in five months
- Fighting has rocked Rakhine state since the Arakan Army attacked security forces in November last year
BANGKOK: A Myanmar ethnic rebel group has captured a military regional command in Rakhine state, it said, in what would be a major blow to the junta.
The Arakan Army (AA) had “completely captured” the western regional command at Ann on Friday after weeks of fighting, the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
Ann would be the second regional military command to fall to ethnic rebels in five months, and a huge blow to the military.
Myanmar’s military has 14 regional commands across the country with many of them currently fighting established ethnic rebel groups or newer “People’s Defense Forces” that have sprung up to battle the military’s 2021 coup.
Fighting has rocked Rakhine state since the AA attacked security forces in November last year, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the putsch.
AA fighters have seized swathes of territory in the state that is home to China and India-backed port projects and all but cut off state capital Sittwe.
The AA posted photos of a man whom it said was the Ann deputy regional commander, in the custody of its fighters.
AFP was unable to confirm that information and has contacted the AA’s spokesman for comment.
AFP was unable to reach people on the ground around Ann where Internet and phone services are patchy.
In decades of on-off fighting since independence from Britain in 1948 the military had never lost a regional military command until last August, when the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) captured the northeastern command in Lashio in Shan state.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence for autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
Last month the UN warned Rakhine state was heading toward famine, as ongoing clashes squeeze commerce and agricultural production.
“Rakhine’s economy has stopped functioning,” the report from the UN Development Programme said, projecting “famine conditions by mid-2025” if current levels of food insecurity were left unaddressed.
Joe Biden approves $571 million in defense support for Taiwan
- The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei
- Taiwan went on alert last week in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Friday agreed to provide $571.3 million in defense support for Taiwan, the White House said, while the State Department approved the potential sale to the island of $265 million worth of military equipment.
The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei, to the constant anger of Beijing.
Democratically governed Taiwan rejects China’s claims of sovereignty.
China has stepped up military pressure against Taiwan, including daily military activities near the island and two rounds of war games this year.
Taiwan went on alert last week in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades around Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas.
Biden had delegated to the secretary of state the authority “to direct the drawdown of up to $571.3 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan,” the White House said in a statement without providing details.
Taiwan’s defense ministry thanked the United States for its “firm security guarantee,” saying in a statement the two sides would continue to work closely on security issues to ensure peace in the Taiwan Strait.
The Pentagon said the State Department had approved the potential sale to Taiwan of about $265 million worth of command, control, communications, and computer modernization equipment.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the equipment sale would help upgrade its command-and-control systems.
Taiwan’s defense ministry also said on Saturday that the US government had approved $30 million of parts for 76 mm autocannon, which it said would boost the island’s capacity to counter China’s “grey-zone” warfare.
