Belarus

NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland will seek European Union funding to build a network of bunkers, barriers, distribution lines and military warehouses along their borders with Russia and Belarus, Estonia´s officials said Saturday.

Russia’s team for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France, consists of just 15 people — a massive fall from the 330 athletes Russia sent to the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games, thanks to the international fallout from Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

The head of a banned Belarusian opposition party who had been behind bars for two years was released on Monday as the authoritarian country frees a trickle of political prisoners.

A Belarusian human rights group said Friday that a German citizen has been sentenced to death for terrorism and other charges.

The Chinese state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times mocked the ongoing NATO summit in Washington on Tuesday as a display of a “brittle” alliance, claiming that the fact that most member states hold free and fair elections – and thus routinely change their rules – weakens them.

Belarusian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Viktor Khrenin said on Monday that his country’s forces are joining “tactical nuclear weapon deployment” drills ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Poland’s military says a soldier who was stabbed last month from behind a barrier at the border with Belarus has died.

President’s main tasks in the NATO-member state are foreign and defense policy, as supreme commander of the armed forces.

Poland is investing about $2.5 billion to step up security and deterrence on its border with Russia and its ally Belarus.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to the country’s border with Belarus, vowing to strengthen security along its eastern frontier.

Poland’s defense minister said his country is strengthening the metal barrier along its border with Belarus to deter illegal migration.

Belarus accuses NATO of provocations that could trigger nucelar apocalypse, and of allegedly launching ‘combat drone’ strikes against Minsk.

Poland is in talks with the United States about hosting nuclear weapons and has been for some time, the country’s President has said.

GENEVA (AP) — Russian and Belarusian athletes will not be allowed to take part in the traditional parade at the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics, the IOC said Tuesday.

Konstantin Koltsov, former Pittsburgh Penguin and boyfriend of tennis star Aryna Sabalenka, has died, according to his Russian hockey team.

Polls opened Sunday in Belarus’ tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections which the opposition dismissed as a “senseless farce.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its annual census of imprisoned reporters this weekend, and found China was once again the world’s worst jailer of journalists, followed closely by Myanmar, with Belarus in third place.

Israel has been barred by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) from competing in world championship events over “security concerns.”

Poland says a Russian missile participating in this morning’s massive air strike on Ukraine spent three minutes in NATO airspace. 

Belarusian authorities convicted the chief editor of a prominent independent regional newspaper of “discrediting the Republic of Belarus”.

Polish border guards successfully repelled dozens of migrants as they attempted to violently break through from neighbouring Belarus.

Vladimir Putin ordered one of the top commanders of the Wagner mercenary group, Andrei Troshev, to take charge of “volunteer units” in Ukraine.

Agnieszka Holland is demanding an apology from Poland’s justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro who compared her film to “Nazi propaganda.”

The Nobel Foundation withdrew its invitation for representatives of Russia, Belarus and Iran for this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies.

Two young men claiming to be 19-year-old Cuban nationals accused unspecified Russian scammers of using a fake construction job offer to deceive them into fighting in Ukraine in a video that surfaced on Wednesday, in which they also said their requests to be deported home have been met with threats of up to 30 years in prison.

Poland and the Baltic states said they will close their borders with Belarus in the event of a military incidents or a migrant push by Minsk.

Cuban diaspora media outlets, citing military and political experts, suggested this week that agreements between the communist Castro regime and its comrades in the government of Belarus could result in Cuban special forces taking on a significant role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Satellite images from Belarus suggest that organizers had begun to dismantle a large tent camp believed to house Wagner PMC fighters.

Lithuania decided to temporarily close two of its six checkpoints with Belarus amid growing tensions with its eastern neighbor.

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu arrived in Russia on Monday to attend the Moscow Conference on International Security, and has plans to visit the allied tyranny of Belarus during his week-long trip.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Sunday there is a “realistic possibility” that Russia is no longer funding the mercenary Wagner Group.

Poland says the country is going to considerably grow its deployment to its border where NATO meets Moscow satellite Belarus.

Polish and Lithuanian leaders held urgent meeting in a strategically sensitive area where their NATO nations border Belarus and Russia.

Poland accuses Belarus of having flown two helicopters into its airspace, accusing the Moscow-aligned nation of escalating tensions.

A message claiming to be from the head of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), Yevgeny Prigozhin, published on social media on Monday suggested that the mercenary organization would continue to remain active only in Africa for the time being – mere days after another claiming to be Prigozhin praised the coup against a pro-Western president in Niger.

Mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner group in Belarus have moved close to the border with Poland, the prime minister said.