Page 45 - Sofia Sapega News Today

US targets Belarus with sanctions amid Western outcry over plane

The Biden administration announced it would re-impose sanctions against nine Belarusian state-owned enterprises and is developing additional penalties to target officials in the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko over the forced landing of a Ryanair Holdings Plc jetliner and the arrest of a dissident journalist.

Alexander Lukashenko has survived as Belarus's authoritarian ruler for 27 years by knowing how to play Russia off against the West. But did his gambit to "hijack" an Irish airliner to arrest a government opponent go too far?

BELARUS-POLITICS/RUSSIA (UPDATE 2, PIX, TV):UPDATE 2-Russia confirms second loan for Belarus, raises issue of detained citizen

Protesters rally against President Lukashenko amid international outrage

President Putin threw his support behind President Lukashenko last night in his face-off with the West over Belarus’s grounding of a passenger jet to arrest a dissident journalist.The two smiled and

KYIV, Ukraine — Raman Pratasevich has been part of the Belarus political opposition for over a decade and has long feared the authorities would try to abduct him, even though he was living abroad. The 26-year-old dissident journalist couldn’t imagine, however, just how far they would go. Pratasevich, who ran a channel on a messaging…

Swift response to Belarus contrasts with EU’s inability to deal with threats to democracy in Hungary and Poland

Thousands of Belarusians have moved to Ukraine since the protests in Belarus began. These are mostly young people who most often go to big cities: Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and Odesa. — Ukrinform.

The EU says it would extend economic support to a "democratic" Belarus as Russian President Vladimir Putin plays dow reaction to flight forced to land in Minsk