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Ongoing: Belarusian involvement in Russian invasion of Ukraine; Belarus–European Union border crisis
Belarusian State University (BSU) is a university in Minsk, Belarus. It was founded on October 30, 1921. In 2023 the university was ranked the number 387 university in the world in the QS World University Rankings.
The Union State of Russia and Belarus, officially also referred to as Union State, is a supranational union consisting of Belarus and Russia, with the stated aim of deepening the relationship between the two states through integration in economic and defence policy. Originally, the Union State aimed to create a confederation; however, both countries currently retain their independence.
The Union of Poles in Belarus is an organisation located in Belarus. The group, which has a membership of 20,000 people, represents the Polish minority in Belarus, numbering about 300,000 it forms the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians, at 3.1% of the total population. An estimated 180,905 Belarusian Poles live in large agglomerations and 113,644 in smaller settlements, with the number of women exceeding the number of men by about 33,000., as per official data.
Presidential elections were held in Belarus on 19 March 2006. The result was a victory for incumbent, President Alexander Lukashenko, who received 84.4% of the vote. However, Western observers deemed the elections rigged. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) declared that the election "failed to meet OSCE commitments for democratic elections". In contrast, election observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) described the vote as open and transparent.
Belarus and Ukraine are both are full members of the Baku Initiative and Central European Initiative. In 2020, during the Belarusian protests against president Lukashenko, the relationship between Ukraine and Belarus began to deteriorate, after the Ukrainian government criticized Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko. In the waning days of 2021, the relationship between both countries rapidly deteriorated, culminating in a full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. Belarus has allowed the stationing of Russian troops and equipment in its territory and its use as a springboard for offensives into northern Ukraine but has denied the presence of Belarusian troops in Ukraine. Even though part of the Russian invasion was launched from Belarus, Ukraine did not break off diplomatic relations with Belarus, but remain frozen.
Andrzej Poczobut is a Belarusian and Polish journalist and activist of the Polish minority in Belarus. He lives in Hrodna, Belarus.
Events in the year 2020 in Belarus.
The 2020–2021 Belarusian protests were a series of mass political demonstrations and protests against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. The largest anti-government protests in the history of Belarus, the demonstrations began in the lead-up to and during the 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought his sixth term in office. In response to the demonstrations, a number of relatively small pro-government rallies were held.
Hanna Anatolyeuna Kanapatskaya or Anna Anatolyevna Kanopatskaya is a Belarusian politician, former MP, lawyer, entrepreneur and candidate in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. She is also a former parliamentary deputy, represented the United Civic Party of Belarus from 1995 to 2019 and served as an MP from 2016 to 2019. She is known for her political campaign on calling Belarus to be freed from Russian interference.
Olga Kovalkova, also known as Volha Kavalkova, is a Belarusian activist and a member of the presidium of the Coordination Council of Belarus that was formed by the presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to transition the political power in Belarus in the aftermath the 2020 Belarusian protests and the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election.
The most infamous cases of people's disappearances in Belarus have occurred during the presidency of Alexander Lukashenko. For the most part, the people who have disappeared have been opponents of the president. They are considered cases of forced disappearance.
Roman Dmitriyevich Protasevich or Raman Dzmitryevich Pratasevich is a Belarusian blogger and political activist. He was the editor-in-chief of the Telegram channel Nexta and chief editor of the Telegram channel "Belarus of the Brain".
Nexta is a Belarusian media outlet that is primarily distributed through Telegram and YouTube channels. The YouTube channel was founded by then 17-year-old student Stsiapan Putsila. The channel's headquarters are located in Warsaw, Poland, after its founder went into exile.
On 28 September 2021, Andrei Zeltser, a Belarusian IT worker, was killed in Minsk by members of the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus who conducted a raid on his apartment. After a door breaching, a shootout took place, in which Zeltser fatally shot Dmitry Fedosyuk, a KGB agent from the Alpha Group unit. Zeltser was subsequently killed by the KGB. Zeltser was subsequently called a "terrorist" by the government. According to the state-owned Belarusian Telegraph Agency, "members of an extremist group with ties to the opposition, supposedly, lived in the apartment", referring to Zeltser, 31, and his wife, who was arrested.
Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has supported its eastern neighbour in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before the start of the offensive, Belarus allowed the Russian Armed Forces to perform weeks-long military drills on its territory; however, the Russian troops did not exit the country after they were supposed to finish. Belarus allowed Russia to stage part of the invasion from its territory, giving Russia the shortest possible land route to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. However, these forces withdrew within two months, thus ceasing land-based military operations originating from Belarus and resulting in the recapture of the Ukrainian side of the border region by Ukraine. Despite this, the situation along the border remains tense, with Ukraine closing the border checkpoints leading into Belarus, bar special cases.
Events of the year 2022 in Belarus.
The Association of Security Forces of Belarus, also known as BYPOL, is a Belarusian organization that was created by former employees of law enforcement agencies to counter the Belarusian authorities. The association has channels on YouTube and Telegram, on which it publishes various videos related to the security forces, and also doxes law enforcement officers.
Aliaksandr Azarau is a former police investigator in Belarusian security services including the Investigative Committee of Belarus and GUBOPiK. As of 2022, he is head of the Belarusian opposition police group BYPOL. Azarau was responsible for law and order as a member of the United Transitional Cabinet of the Belarusian opposition from August 2022 to 6 August 2023.
The Freedom March was a 1999 protest by the Belarusian opposition in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The protest was caused as a result of fears of Belarus being annexed into Russia as part of the then-impending ratification of the Union State. Additional concerns of protesters were the enforced disappearances of opposition politicians Viktar Hanchar and Yury Zacharanka and, more broadly, the authoritarian rule of President Alexander Lukashenko. The protest, which ended in a violent confrontation between the city's police and protesters, resulted in the Belarusian government walking back plans for the Union State and the continued independence of Belarus from Russia.
On February 26, 2023, at the Machulishchy military airfield, around 12 kilometers from Minsk, a Russian A-50 early warning military aircraft was damaged as a result of explosions. BYPOL claimed responsibility for the drone attack. Alyaksandr Lukashenko acknowledged the attack only a week later, stating that the damage to the aircraft was minor. Later, he admitted that the A-50 still had to be sent to Russia for repairs.
