Russia has built or expanded at least 10 drone bases along its borders with Ukraine and Belarus, creating launch capacity for newer jet-powered attack drones, the most powerful of which could reach Warsaw, The Telegraph reported on 16 August 2026.

The network expands Russia’s capacity for mass drone attacks on Ukraine, while some sites could later threaten NATO. The findings come as Russia is also expanding bases and other military infrastructure along NATO’s northern and Baltic borders. The Telegraph found no evidence that Moscow is planning such an attack.

Seven of the 10 sites were used during recent bombardments of Kyiv, tracking data cited by The Telegraph showed. Using leaked documents, satellite imagery, and DroneSec's analysis, the newspaper identified at least 59 launch rails—tracks that launch fixed-wing drones without runways.

Around 20 appeared long enough for Russia’s latest long-range models, while one base could reportedly store over 1,000 drones.

Leaked Ukrainian documents cited by The Telegraph say the jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 can carry 90-kilogram warheads. However, Ukrainian military intelligence puts the Geran-4’s range at up to 450 kilometers, while the larger Geran-5 has a stated range of up to 1,000 kilometers — enough to reach Warsaw from several of the new sites.

DroneSec founder Mike Monnik said expanded launch capacity and harder-to-intercept technology together increase pressure on Ukrainian air defenses.

Russia builds military infrastructure along NATO’s northern flank

Russia is also expanding military infrastructure elsewhere along NATO’s borders. A Nordic-Baltic investigation identified new or expanded infrastructure from Norway to Kaliningrad, with potential capacity for up to 115,000 personnel.

Satellite imagery showed new barracks, ammunition warehouses, and expanded bases near NATO’s northern and Baltic members.

The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, assessed that the construction likely supports future Russian operations against NATO rather than an imminent attack. Most Russian combat power remains committed to Ukraine, it said.

Other drone hubs support rapid Russian attacks

Russia has already built comparable hubs for attacks on Ukraine. Satellite imagery analyzed by the open-source intelligence group Strategic Aviation of Russia showed 10 additional launchers under construction at Tsymbulova in Oryol Oblast, following the start of work on 22 April 2026.

At occupied Donetsk Airport, the group identified enlarged launch pads, roads to a Geran and Gerbera drone warehouse, and the apparent construction of another storage building.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it struck Shahed storage and launch sites at Primorsko-Akhtarsk on 2 August 2025. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert "Madyar" Brovdi reported hitting drone logistics, warhead-storage, and preparation facilities at Donetsk Airport on 30 December 2025.

Ukraine condemns Russia for jailing people on fabricated terrorism charges. Yet, its own security services keep sending Kremlin opponents back to Moscow, human rights defender Borys Zakharov said in an interview with Ukrainian outlet Texty.org.ua.

The handovers are not a relic of a friendlier past. They slowed after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, then resumed; the transfers now run through third countries, Zakharov says, and at least one has ridden the prisoner swaps that bring Ukraine's captured soldiers home. Ukraine is returning the exact people who bet their lives on it; at the moment, it presents itself to the world as the rule-of-law side of this war.

A double standard, few in Kyiv discuss

Zakharov directs the charitable foundation Human and Law, which defends people fleeing authoritarian states. Russia prosecutes captured Ukrainians on invented terrorism charges, and Kyiv rightly calls it a sham. But when Chechens, Ingush, and other North Caucasians ask Ukraine for protection, officials sometimes brand them criminals and send them back—men who often fled two brutal Chechen wars and the crackdowns after them, and some of whom later fought Russia in volunteer units.

"We say: yes, they are criminals. We hand them over to Russia to die," Zakharov said.

International law forbids this. The principle of non-refoulement bars any state from returning a person to a country where they face death, persecution, or torture. Zakharov says Ukraine's migration authorities often skip that risk assessment entirely.

The cases the West never heard about

Take Timur Tumgoev, an Ingush volunteer fighter whom Ukraine extradited in September 2018. A Russian court sentenced him to 18 years on terrorism charges, his defenders call fabricated. Zakharov says he was tortured so badly that he can barely move.

Others escaped by luck. Ukraine nearly removed Zelimkhan Belkharoev, a wrestler, in 2016 despite an emergency order from the European Court of Human Rights, Zakharov says; a deputy justice minister intervened in time. Adam Osmayev, a Chechen battalion commander whose wife Amina Okueva was killed in a 2017 assassination attempt, was saved the same way years earlier.

Why did it not stop after 2022

The war did not end the handovers—it rerouted them. Direct extraditions paused; the transfers now run through Belarus, Moldova, and Turkiye, Zakharov says.

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Zakharov says Zaur Shogentsukov, a Kabardian who crossed from Belarus to join Ukraine's forces, allegedly failed a polygraph test with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and was pushed back into Belarus under a readmission deal. His tortured body later came back to his family in Nalchik, he says.

Alexey Gerasimov, a student from Russia's Chuvash region who reportedly backed his homeland's independence, slipped into Ukraine in 2024 to join the Sibir Battalion, a unit of Russian volunteers. He ended up in one of the large prisoner exchanges that followed the May 2025 Istanbul talks, and Ukraine delivered him to Russia, where he now faces terrorism charges—the independent Russian outlet Verstka reported in an investigation carried by Novaya Gazeta Europe.

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The most recent case is still unfolding. Aslan Khakimov, a Russian engineer who fled the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2015 and spent years building robots for Ukraine's army, has sat in a migration facility since April 2026, accused of financing terrorism and facing deportation.

The most recent case is still unfolding. Aslan Khakimov, a Russian engineer who fled the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2015 and spent years building ground robotic systems for Ukraine's army, entered on forged documents and lived for a decade under a false identity, Ruslan Puptaiev—the illegal stay Ukraine's migration service cites for the deportation order it issued in April 2026. Russia has separately convicted him in absentia of terrorism, a charge his defenders call fabricated. His supporters argue that returning him would be a death sentence.

Ukraine's services frame these as wartime security decisions, and infiltration is a genuine risk. But non-refoulement admits no wartime exception: even a proven spy is not a country's to send to his death.

The money question

Zakharov offers a blunter explanation for at least some cases: money. In the Tumgoev handover, he says, the man's family was quietly invited to outbid Moscow—to top the sum Russian handlers allegedly pay SBU officers for each person delivered.

"Totalitarian regimes spare no money persecuting their opponents," he said.

Ukraine's security service has not confirmed his account, and the allegation rests solely on his testimony.

Russia, for its part, has already shown its games in these exchanges, at times swapping in people with no link to the war. As Kyiv negotiates ever-larger exchanges to free its own soldiers, the same machinery can carry the Russians and Caucasians who fought for Ukraine the other way — a propaganda gift to Moscow and a warning to the next would-be defector that Ukraine's protection may not hold. For a state that anchors its whole cause in the rule of law, that is a debt that keeps compounding.

Starting in September, Belarusian 10th-graders will be split by gender for new practical training: boys will take a 10-hour drone-piloting course, girls an expanded tactical medicine block, Deputy Education Minister Alyaksandr Kadlubai said, according to BelTA. The changes fall under the "pre-conscription and medical training" classes already taught in Belarusian schools.

The update fits a broader pattern of militarizing education in Belarus since the 2020 protests and Alyaksandr Lukashenka's subsequent crackdown. Military-patriotic clubs, formalized under a 2022 presidential decree, have spread through Belarusian schools, sending children as young as elementary school age through weapons training and field exercises. This year, Radio Svoboda says that 10-day military field camps have become mandatory for 10th-graders, and kindergartens have opened groups with a military-patriotic focus.

Kadlubai singled out cooperation with a Minsk-based military unit, No. 5448, home to a police brigade of the interior troops, saying the ministry aims to "scale this experience across the whole of Belarus."

"We've strengthened the practical component," Kadlubai said. "We've shifted the balance toward practical classes and increased their volume."

While Belarus drills its own children, Russia indoctrinates Ukraine's

Belarus is not a neutral bystander to Russia's war. Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government let Russian forces stage the February 2022 invasion from Belarusian soil, and Kyiv says it keeps expanding the logistics routes, training grounds, and artillery positions Russia could use for future operations.

And what its ally teaches at home, Russia imposes by force on Ukrainian children under occupation. From 1 September 2026, occupation authorities roll out a curriculum built around loyalty to the Russian state — a compulsory Russian "identity" subject, a split-off military-training course, and behavior graded from the second grade as "exemplary," "acceptable," or "unacceptable." It already reaches more than 582,000 children in nearly 2,000 schools.

Lithuania's government approved an expanded plan on 12 August to fortify its borders with Russia and Belarus against a possible attack, LRT reports. Lithuania, a Baltic state and NATO member, sits wedged between Russia's Kaliningrad exclave and Belarus. The decision opens a new counter-mobility belt reaching inland from the border, a 20-meter strip that widens to 150 meters where the army marks out areas for operations.

The buildout answers a fear that has gripped the Baltics since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022: that a Russia left unchecked in Ukraine could turn on them next. Western intelligence agencies have warned for years that Moscow could eventually threaten NATO itself, and former CIA director David Petraeus has singled out Lithuania as the likeliest first target, pinned between Kaliningrad and Belarus and sitting beside the Suwałki Gap, the thin land corridor that is NATO's only overland route to the Baltic states.

The decision raises the number of engineering parks, storage depots for obstacles like concrete blocks and roadblocks, from 27 to 50, and gives that work until the end of 2028, more than three years past the original April 2025 target. The state rail company LTG Infra is to store the equipment. The changes could cost an extra €50 million ($58 million) from the State Defense Fund between 2026 and 2030.

Of the Baltic states and Poland fortifying their eastern borders, Lithuania is the most at risk yet the least fortified, according to a satellite review by open-source analyst Clément Molin, even as Belarus keeps testing that border with engineered migrant crossings. The plan is Lithuania's share of the Baltic Defense Line, the joint barrier it launched in 2024 with Latvia and Estonia, alongside Poland's parallel East Shield.

The design comes straight from Ukraine. Lithuania began building counter-mobility parks in 2023, drawing on Russia's war against Ukraine, and much of what it is now putting into the ground, the swamps, ditches, and obstacle fields, was tested first on Ukrainian battlefields, where mud, water, and simple barriers have repeatedly stalled armored advances.

The restored swamps should make some ground impassable to heavy military vehicles within a few years, the Defense Ministry says, with that work due by the end of 2030. Plans for defensive ditches and streams in the Marijampolė municipality were dropped, and the ministry found better sites in the Vilkaviškis and Šakiai districts. Deadlines for obstacles on roads and bridge approaches, and for fitting bridges with holders for explosives, were also moved to the end of 2028.

"Military counter-mobility is an important part of Lithuania's defence preparedness," Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Mikelkevičius said. "We seek to make the best possible use of Lithuania's terrain and engineering measures to impede an adversary's movement if necessary and create more favorable conditions for our armed forces to operate."

Lithuania approved its first counter-mobility plan in July 2024. The plan's original 2024 estimate put the full system at around €600 million ($690 million) over the decade.

Russia's pressure on the Baltic borders

The buildout lands amid steady friction along NATO's eastern edge. Latvia has absorbed the bulk of the migrant crossings funneled from Belarus, and this week found its first used smuggling tunnel under the border. Estonia has switched on the first sensors of a planned drone wall along its Russian frontier and is reallocating €500 million ($575 million) toward air defense and long-range strike. Russia, for its part, has shut seven rail crossings with Latvia, Estonia, and Finland without explanation.

The fortification drive is a bet on time. Estonia's military chief has set a two-year clock, warning Russia could be combat-ready again by 2027, and ISW analysts assessed in May that Moscow was manufacturing pretexts for aggression against the Baltics. Poland's parallel East Shield, meanwhile, has gone up far slower than promised, leaving the region's defenses still thin where the threat is judged greatest.

Latvia has discovered its first known border tunnel used to enter the country illegally from Belarus, the country’s State Border Guard said on 11 August. Officers intercepted 15 people who had crossed through the underground passage and returned them to Belarus.

Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland accuse Belarus and Russia of directing migrants toward their borders to retaliate for EU sanctions and strain countries supporting Ukraine. Minsk and Moscow deny orchestrating the crossings. Tunnels found in Lithuania and Latvia show organizers adapting to fortified borders, requiring Baltic governments to deploy more personnel and surveillance technology.

The tunnel was about 10 meters from Latvia's fence

Border guards found the group on 10 August in Skrudaliena parish, in Latvia’s southeastern Augšdaugava municipality, and briefed the public on the discovery the following day. The operation involved the State Police, a Lithuanian border-service dog handler, and a rapid-response unit, the Latvian Border Guard said.

While reconstructing the group’s route, officers found the passage near the Silene border post, about 10 meters from Latvia’s fence. The agency said it had received intelligence that a tunnel might be under construction, but had previously found no sign of a breach there.

Riga answered on 11 August 2026 by launching Operation Vilkatis, or “Werewolf,” scheduled to run through the end of August. The government says the operation will improve intelligence-sharing among border guards, police, the military, and security services. It will also expand aerial surveillance and target networks that transport and shelter migrants after they cross.

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Latvia faced 87% of all crossing attempts along the EU-Belarus border by mid-July 2026

Belarus has weaponized migration since 2021, when EU governments accused Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime of bringing people from the Middle East and Africa to the bloc’s frontier in retaliation for sanctions. Belarus denied orchestrating the crisis.

Latvia reported more direct evidence in January 2026. Documents and phones taken from detained migrants linked Belarusian military and border personnel to organized crossings, according to Latvia’s armed forces and Border Guard.

By 13 July, Latvia had recorded 7,791 attempts over 111 consecutive days, 87% of all attempts along the EU-Belarus border by then. Lithuania later found an unfinished tunnel dug from Belarus. Latvia’s tunnel, unlike the unfinished Lithuanian passage, had already been used.

Belarus is expanding its military footprint on the Ukrainian border again, standing up a new brigade near the frontier, the commander of its Special Operations Forces said on state television. President Lukashenka insists the buildup is defensive and that Belarus will not be dragged into the war.

Russia has long treated Belarusian soil as a forward base and pressure point—a way to rattle Ukraine's north and NATO's eastern edge without spending its own overstretched army, sustained through drills, troop moves, and nuclear signaling.

A new brigade taking shape

The unit is the 37th separate air-assault brigade under Belarus's Special Operations Forces—its fourth such airborne brigade. It will be based near the city of Homiel, just across from Ukraine's Chernihiv Oblast and about 40 km from the frontier. The permanent move to that base is set for 2027. Colonel Aliaksandr Ilyukevich, who commands the Special Operations Forces, laid out the plan on Belarus's Defense Ministry VoenTV channel on 2 August, Militarnyi reported.

By his account, one battalion is already formed, with a second due this year alongside reconnaissance, air-defense, and artillery units. Ilyukevich had first described that battalion back in February on another Belarusian state channel. His August appearance restated it and attached the unit's new 37th designation.

Why the northern buildup still costs Ukraine

Belarus has never put its own soldiers into Ukraine. It did hand Russia the launchpad for the 2022 drive on Kyiv, though, and it has kept the border militarized ever since—even hosting Russian hardware such as the drone relay stations Kyiv later pressed Minsk to pull.

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A standing brigade on the frontier still does not add up to an imminent invasion. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) still judges a Belarusian ground assault very unlikely. However, every new unit in the north ties down Ukrainian troops and air defenses that Kyiv needs elsewhere, and it gifts Russia a threat it can activate without firing a shot—the same hybrid playbook Minsk runs against EU neighbors, funneling migrants toward Latvia.

World Boxing has stripped away the last restrictions on Russian competitors, clearing them to fight under their national flag rather than as neutrals, Reuters reported. The move brings the sport into line with a wider loosening across international competition, as the Olympic movement edges Russia back toward the Games while its war on Ukraine grinds on.

Boxing lifts the neutral-status rule

World Boxing's executive committee approved the change at a meeting that also discussed the allocation of major competitions in the 2027-29 cycle, which take in the qualifying route to the Los Angeles 2028 Games. 

 "The ExCo accepted that Russian athletes would now take part in World Boxing competitions like boxers from any other national federation," the body said.

he governing body attached only a monitoring commitment, none of it tied to the war. It said it would "strictly monitor the behaviour of Russian delegations during events as well as compliance with the anti-doping protocols." That pledge to police Russian anti-doping sits oddly beside Russia's own record, since WADA recently closed an eight-year case into the country's state-run doping program with hundreds of athlete sanctions.

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Sport keeps reopening its doors to Russia

The boxing decision follows the International Olympic Committee provisionally reinstating Russia's Olympic body this month, clearing Russia's path back toward the 2028 Los Angeles Games. It caps a run of federations doing the same through 2026: artistic gymnastics scrapped its restrictions in May, muaythai restored Russian flags and anthems alongside wrestling, judo, sambo and taekwondo days later, and tennis never dropped the neutral pathway at all.

Not every sport has bent the same way. World chess went in the opposite direction in June, when the International Chess Federation suspended the Russian Chess Federation, the first time it had stripped its most powerful member of its membership rights. 

U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg denied on July 1 that he agreed to "work on" halting Ukraine's drone attacks on Russia, contradicting Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko's claim.

Speaking at a state event on Belarus's Independence Day, Lukashenko said he relayed Russian President Vladimir Putin's position to Kellogg during their June 21 meeting in Minsk.

According to Lukashenko, the Russian president is willing to consider a ceasefire in Ukraine if Ukrainian forces stop conducting drone strikes on Russian territory.

"I conveyed this position to the Americans," Lukashenko said on July 1. "We will work on it, said (the U.S. special envoy), in this direction."

Kellogg pushed back on the claim, writing on X that the quote was "taken out of context" and misrepresented the substance of their talks.

"At no point did I make comments related to Ukraine's prosecution of the war outside of a total ceasefire," he said. "In my conversation with Lukashenko, we discussed a full and unconditional ceasefire."

The June meeting between Kellogg and Lukashenko marked the highest-level U.S. visit to Belarus since former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 2020 trip. Belarusian state media widely portrayed Kellogg's visit as a sign of thawing relations.

Shortly after the talks, Belarus released opposition leader and political prisoner Siarhei Tsikhanouski, who had been jailed since the 2020 presidential election.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994 and remains a key ally of the Kremlin. His regime has allowed Russian troops and equipment to use Belarusian territory to attack Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Military aid delays will ‘encourage Russia to continue war,’ Ukraine tells US envoy

Ukraine warned that “any delay or hesitation in supporting Ukraine’s defense capabilities will only encourage Russia to continue war and terror, rather than pursue peace.”

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced on July 1 that the Russian-made Oreshnik missile system will be deployed in Belarus by the end of 2025. Speaking at a ceremony marking Independence Day, Lukashenko said the decision was made in coordination with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Volgograd.

"The first Oreshnik positions will be in Belarus. You’ve seen how Oreshnik works: the same missiles, the same strikes — but without nuclear warheads, without radioactive contamination of the land and air. This weapon will be stationed in Belarus by the end of the year," Lukashenko said.

Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994 and claimed victory in a seventh consecutive presidential election in January, argued that hosting such weaponry would not make Belarus a target, adding that such concerns are being "imposed from outside." He claimed that countries possessing nuclear weapons have historically avoided military aggression and said the presence of such systems in Belarus is intended solely as a deterrent.

He also said he had delivered a warning to U.S. officials, stating that while nuclear weapons in Belarus are securely stored in accordance with international standards, any unauthorized incursion into Belarusian territory would trigger a "swift and forceful response."

The Belarusian leader emphasized that any use of the Oreshnik system would not involve nuclear warheads and that maintaining modern military capabilities is critical for national defense.

Russia first launched the experimental Oreshnik missile during a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21. Putin claimed the attack was in retaliation for Ukraine's use of U.S. and British long-range missiles against Russian territory.

Although little is publicly known about the missile, defense experts believe Oreshnik is not a wholly new development but likely an upgraded version of Russia’s RS-26 missile, also known as the Rubezh, which was first produced in 2011.

Lukashenko reportedly thanked Moscow for supporting the deployment of advanced weapons systems to Belarus and said the introduction of Oreshnik would serve as a tool for domestic stability. "I’m confident that even those of our supporters who don’t yet understand this will come to realize it — without a war. That’s why Oreshnik will be on Belarusian soil. To prevent uprisings," he said.

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Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a Belarusian oppositionist recently released from prison, thanked the U.S. on June 22 for brokering his release and appealed to President Donald Trump to help free other political prisoners in Belarus.

"President Trump now has the power and opportunity to free all political prisoners in Belarus with a single word. And I ask him to do so, to say that word," Tsikhanouski said in Vilnius during his first press conference after the release.

Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger who planned to challenge Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, was arrested shortly before the vote and later sentenced to 18 years in prison on politically motivated charges.

The opposition leader and at least 13 other detainees were released from Belarusian prisons on June 21 after Lukashenko met U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in Minsk.

Speaking at the press conference alongside his wife and opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Tsikhanouski affirmed that both of them "will continue to support Ukraine and call all of the perpetrators accountable."

Tsikhanouski confirmed that he used to do business both in Ukraine and in Russia but refuted allegations of pro-Russian sympathies, affirming his support for Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"I believe Crimea is Ukrainian. Zelensky has the hardest fate and a heavy load that no other president has. Zelensky is my hero," Tsikhanouski said.

He also said that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya remains the leader of the Belarusian opposition, and he will not challenge that.

Tsikhanouskaya stepped in as the opposition candidate in 2020 after her husband's arrest, but was forced into exile after Lukashenko declared victory in what was broadly seen as massive election fraud.

"Do you think that anybody who serves in prison automatically becomes a leader? We have 1,200 such leaders," Tsikhanouski added, referring to the number of political prisoners who remain in prison under Lukashenko's regime.

"Belarus can't be free until the Putin regime collapses. If it wasn't for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, we would not be sitting here; it would have been over (after the Belarus' popular protests against Lukashenko) in 2020-2021," Tsikhanouski said.

Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is a close ally of Putin and has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory for military operations against Ukraine.

The Belarusian dictator has maintained a tight grip over his country by electoral fraud, surveillance, and brutal crackdown on free press, civil society, and political opposition, prompting Western countries to impose sanctions on Belarus.

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Editor's note: This item has been expanded with additional details.

Belarusian opposition leader and political prisoner Siarhei Tsikhanouski was released on June 21, shortly after dictator Alexander Lukashenko met in Minsk with U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.

Tsikhanouski , a popular blogger who planned to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, was arrested shortly before the vote and later sentenced to 18 years in prison on politically motivated charges. Amnesty International recognized Tsikhanouski as a prisoner of conscience.

His wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, stepped in and became the main opposition candidate against Lukashenko.

At least 13 political detainees, including prominent blogger Ihar Losik, were also released on June 21, Belarusian independent outlet Nasha Niva reported.

The other released prisoners include three Polish citizens, two Latvian citizens, one Estonian citizen, a Swedish citizen, a U.S. citizen, and two Japanese citizens, according to Lukashenko's press secretary.

In a post on social media, Tsikhanouskaya welcomed the news but highlighted that "1,150 political prisoners remain behind bars."

Kellogg's deputy, John Coale, said the released political prisoners had been transferred to Vilnius and expressed gratitude to the Lithuanian government for facilitating their relocation.

"President Trump's strong leadership led to the release of 14 prisoners from Belarus today. Thanks to the Lithuanian government for its cooperation and assistance — they remain a true friend and ally," Coale wrote on X.

According to official results of the 2020 election, Lukashenko won with 80% of the vote, while Tsikhanouskaya received just 10%. Evidence indicates that the election was heavily rigged, and Tsikhanouskaya could have realistically won the vote.

As a result, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Belarus in 2020 to demand a fair election. Thousands were arrested, and many were beaten and tortured. At least seven demonstrators were killed during the protests.

Minsk has faced repeated Western sanctions since the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory for military operations against Ukraine.

"You have caused quite a stir in the world with your arrival," Lukashenko told Kellogg during their meeting at the Palace of Independence, according to state-run outlet Belta.

"But I wonder why. Can't we have a normal dialogue and talk about our affairs – about relations between Belarus and the United States of America?"

Kellogg is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Belarus in recent years, following former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 2020 trip under Trump's first term.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Lukashenko's regime has played a key logistical role in supporting Moscow's campaign, offering its territory for troop deployments and weapons stockpiles.

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Latvia's parliament adopted a bill on June 19 that prohibits citizens of Russia and Belarus from purchasing real estate in the country, Latvian media reported.

The bill — which carves out exceptions for EU and Latvian permanent residence holders, Belarusian refugees, and repatriates — establishes the new restrictions under the pretenses of protecting the country's national security.

In addition to citizens, the bill prohibits entities that are at least 25% owned by Russian or Belarusian nationals from purchasing property.

"This is a step to limit the influence and presence in Latvia of persons and companies that are adverse to the country,” said Agnese Krasta, an Estonian member of parliament and one of the authors of the initiative.

Latvia, which borders both Russia and Estonia, is widely viewed as one of the most likely targets for a future Russian attack on NATO or the European Union. As the war in Ukraine continues to rage on, Latvia has taken action to increase civil preparedness measures and has drafted plans to relocate a quarter of its population in the case of war.

EU intelligence and security agencies have warned of mounting Russian sabotage operations, including several arson attacks believed to have been coordinated by Moscow.

Latvia joins Finland in imposing a ban on Russians from buying, as Baltic and Nordic countries continue to impose restrictions on Russia over its aggression in the region.

In September 2022, Latvia imposed entry restrictions on Russian citizens as part of a joint agreement with Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland.

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Latvia has been one of Ukraine's most vocal backers.

The Baltic state ranks among Europe's top defense spenders, allocating over 3% of GDP to defense in 2025, according to NATO estimates.

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U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg will meet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the coming days, Reuters reported on June 17, citing four sources familiar with the matter.

Kellogg will meet Lukashenko in a visit to Belarus as peace talks to bring an end to Russia's war against Ukraine remain inconclusive, Reuters reported.

In February, U.S. Deputy Assistant State Secretary Christopher W. Smith visited Belarus alongside two other U.S. officials to conduct a prisoner swap in a similar unannounced visit.

Lukashenko has been in power since 1994 and has been accused of staging fraudulent elections in Belarus. The leader declared a seventh consecutive presidential election victory in January.

Kellogg has given the impression that the meeting could help reinitiate largely unsuccessful peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, two sources told Reuters.

Lukashenko is seen as a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russia faces isolation in response to its full-scale war against Ukraine.

The White House has discussed ways to weaken Russia's influence on Minsk and bring Belarus closer to the United States, one of the sources said.

On Feb. 12, Smith drove to Belarus from Lithuania following a phone call with Lukashenko. The small U.S. delegation visited a border town where three political prisoners were transferred, including one U.S. citizen and two Belarusian citizens, the New York Times reported.

Lukashenko assured he was ready to decrease repression in Belarus, Smith said, adding that the U.S. wants Belarus to be less reliant on Russia.

Belarus has faced Western sanctions following a presidential election in 2020 that international observers condemned as fraudulent. The sham election garnered mass protests that rejected the results.

Minsk refused to invite a mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to observe the country's Jan. 26 presidential election.

Belarus further isolated itself from the West as it supports Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine.

‘He said he wasn’t going anywhere’ — Survivors search for missing following Russia’s deadliest attack on Kyiv this year

Sitting a few meters from the rubble of what used to be a nondescript nine-story residential building in Kyiv, Lilia rises to her feet every time another pile of debris is cleared from the site targeted by Russia during a mass overnight attack on June 17. “We are waiting (as

The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Denisova

The Council of the EU on June 12 approved fresh tariffs on fertilizers and remaining agricultural goods from Russia and Belarus, aiming to reduce Russian export revenues.

The measures target those goods that have not yet been subject to additional customs duties and will enter into force on July 1. The tariffs on fertilizers will increase gradually over the next three years.

The step comes as the EU readies additional sanctions against Russia as it continues to wage its all-out war against Ukraine.

"Polish Presidency motto is 'Security, Europe!' and these measures increase our economic security by reducing dependencies from Russia," said Michal Baranowski, the trade undersecretary at the Polish Economy Ministry.

"We are further reducing Russia’s export revenues and therefore its ability to finance its brutal war. This is united Europe at its best," he said in a statement.

The new tariffs will apply to goods that made up around 15% of all agricultural imports from Russia in 2023. Fertilizer tariffs will focus on certain nitrogen-based products, the Council said in a statement.

Russian fertilizers accounted for more than a quarter of all of the EU's imports in this sector in 2023, worth almost $1.5 billion.

Apart from stifling Russia's trade revenue, the step also aims to reduce the EU's dependence on Russian and Belarusian goods, protect European farmers, and diversify the supply.

The EU adopted higher tariffs on cereals, oilseeds, and some other products from Russia and Belarus in May 2024. Earlier this year, the European Commission proposed imposing similar measures on all remaining agricultural products from the two countries.

Putin’s suspected daughter found working in anti-war galleries in Paris

Nastya Rodionova, a Russian writer and artist who has been based in Paris since 2022, had only met gallery manager Luiza Rozova in passing at events before she learned who the 22-year-old’s parents were. Described by a number of people as a “very nice and well-mannered girl,” Rozova is

The Kyiv IndependentKate Tsurkan

Il n’a jamais été simple de parler du Bélarus en France sans tomber dans le cliché. La formulation « dernière dictature d’Europe » a encore été reprise par les médias aujourd’hui pour évoquer le scrutin présidentiel qui s’est tenu dimanche, et j’en veux un peu aux journalistes pour cette paresse intellectuelle.
« Dernière dictature d’Europe » était une formule confortable pour se rassurer sur le processus de démocratisation qui aurait été en voie de généralisation sur le continent européen; certes, à des vitesses variables, mais quand-même quasiment certain. Le Bélarus faisait alors office d’épouvantail et de dernier bastion d’un monde en cours de disparition. Cela empêchait de voir les dynamiques réelles sur place (et de s’interroger par exemple sur la manière dont la stabilité, les politiques sociales et le progrès économique pouvaient atrophier la sensibilité politique). Cela faisait aussi du bien à l’égo européen.
Nous n’en sommes plus là aujourd’hui, bien évidemment, et dans un contexte de montée d’attractivité des autoritarismes, le Belarus est plutôt un cas d’école qui devrait attirer notre attention. Dire que l’élection présidentielle qui vient de s’écouler était un simulacre, c’est à la fois vrai et stérile, parce que c’est une manière de dire « point, à la ligne, on passe à autre chose » qui neutralise toute volonté de compréhension.
Malheureusement, la guerre conduite par la Russie contre l’Ukraine m’a empêché d’être suffisamment vigilante sur le Bélarus pour livrer une analyse approfondie. Ce que je dis est à prendre avec des pincettes; ce sont des pistes à creuser.
Un régime politique autoritaire fonctionne grâce à un certain dosage de coercition et d’adhésion; il doit non seulement mettre en place une répression suffisamment forte pour bloquer les oppositions, mais aussi distribuer suffisamment de bénéfices pour susciter l’adhésion. Plus le ratio est en faveur des bénéfices, plus le pouvoir est stable; plus il penche du côté répressif, plus le régime est fragile. Pendant longtemps, le régime politique du Belarus s’est attaché à distribuer beaucoup de bénéfices à la population, notamment à travers des politiques sociales, des politiques de développement et une promesse de stabilité et de prévisibilité. Les Bélarusses vivaient – économiquement – plutôt mieux que beaucoup de leurs voisins, et en avaient conscience. Le prix politique à payer apparaissait donc comme acceptable.
Evidemment, le soutien de la Russie était et reste l’exosquelette du régime bélarusse, aussi bien d’un point de vue politique qu’économique.
Les protestations massives de 2020 étaient intervenues dans le contexte d’une certaine fragilisation du modèle, et notamment d’une perception du régime comme moins protecteur, mais aussi en décalage avec les demandes de la société. Les répressions violentes qui ont suivi et qui se sont maintenues tout au long des années suivantes ont fait basculer le ratio répression/bénéfices en faveur de la répression. Cette période violente va compter dans l’histoire politique bélarusse: on ne le perçoit pas encore, mais elle a donné naissance à une expérience différente, moins marginale de l’opposition politique, de la répression et de la prison. Elle a aussi permis de structurer une opposition à l’étranger et de lui donner des canaux de prise de parole. Derrière les apparences de « il ne se passe rien », le Belarus est en réalité bien plus prêt qu’en 2020 à entamer une transition politique, avec une nouvelle génération de citoyens jetés avec violence dans la politique.
Cependant, et paradoxalement, c’est la guerre en Ukraine qui a redonné de la stabilité au régime bélarusse. En effet, dans un contexte où la Russie essaie de toutes ses forces de faire du Bélarus un cobelligérant, il y a des choses que Loukachenko a réussi à protéger. Certes, des unités armées russes et des complexes d’armement sont désormais basés au Belarus, qui sert de base aux attaques contre l’Ukraine. Cependant, aucune unité armée bélarusse ne combat aux côtés de la Russie contre l’Ukraine. Pensez au paradoxe: des soldats nord-coréens, mais pas de soldats bélarusses, alors que le pays se déclare être le plus proche allié de la Russie. Le territoire du Bélarus reste un territoire en paix. Cela, les citoyens savent qu’ils le doivent en partie à Loukachenko… mais aussi en partie aux Ukrainiens qui ne désespèrent pas de retourner les Bélarusses contre Moscou, et qui ne les perçoivent pas de la même manière que les Russes.
La politique menée par Loukachenko vis-à-vis de la Russie a été caractérisée par un de mes anciens collègues bélarusses par la formule suivante: « on dit oui à tout, puis on bureaucratise au maximum le processus pour finalement ne rien faire ». C’est aussi une stratégie que les Bélarusses appliquent au quotidien vis-à-vis de leur Etat. Il y a une certaine résilience stratégique de la société bélarusse qu’on ferait bien de souligner. Ne nous laissons pas tromper par cette apparence de calme plat: le Bélarus n’est pas la Russie et suivra une dynamique qui lui sera propre.