June 2023
Prigozhin has moved to Belarus, its president says
The exile of the 62-year-old owner of the Wagner Group was part of the deal that ended the short-lived mutiny in Russia.
- The Associated Press
Wagner boss lands in Belarus as angry Putin laments wasted billions
Vladimir Putin praised his troops for averting a “civil war” and blasted the Wagner group, saying he had spent $4.8 billion on the mercenaries who revolted.
- Bloomberg News
- Analysis
- Russia-Ukraine war
Dictator next door big winner of Wagner-Putin clash
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is taking credit for brokering an end to the Wagner mutiny in Russia.
- Valerie Hopkins
March 2023
Putin to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus
The Russian president likened his plans to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, and said that Russia would not be transferring control to Belarus.
- David Ljunggren
Belarus sentences Nobel Peace laureate Bialiatski to 10 years in jail
The decade-long sentence for Ales Bialiatski marked the latest display of contempt for the West by the government of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
- Francesca Ebel
May 2022
Wimbledon reduced to an exhibition tournament
Wimbledon has been stripped of its ranking points by the men’s and women’s tours as the tennis world dramatically escalated its response to the ban on Russian and Belarusian players.
- Simon Briggs
March 2022
Ukraine war hits home supplies as Bunnings bans Russian timber
Wood product importers are warning that a ban on Russian imports would affect home-building and disrupt up to 60,000 housing starts.
- Michael Bleby
- Analysis
- Russia-Ukraine war
Next door to Ukraine, will Putin’s other invasion also unravel?
The Russian leader has pulled off a “soft annexation” of Belarus. But the war might yet unexpectedly loosen his leash on Minsk’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko.
- Updated
- Hans van Leeuwen
December 2021
Weaponised illegal migration could come to Australia too, Poland warns
Warsaw is on a geopolitical fault line, facing unprecedented hybrid-warfare threats from Russia and Belarus – and it wants tougher action from the West.
- Hans van Leeuwen
November 2021
Britain tells Putin to end ‘shameful’ migrant row
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says Russian President Vladimir Putin has a ‘clear responsibility’ to end Belarus’ attempt to use ‘desperate migrants as pawns’ to destabilise the region.
- Harry Yorke and Nataliya Vasilyeva
Belarus weaponises migrants on Polish border in dispute with EU
At least 2000 people are believed to be stuck at the Belarusian/Polish border, as Minsk seeks to create a migration crisis to undermine its neighbours.
- Amy Mackinnon and Robbie Gramer
August 2021
How Belarus’ authoritarian creep reached the Olympics
An alleged attempt to forcibly repatriate Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya suggests sport is still far from free of politics.
- Ido Vock
May 2021
Russia confirms second loan for Belarus amid ‘piracy’ furore
President Vladimir Putin showed Russia’s long-standing ally support in the stand-off with the West over a jet grounded in Minsk and the arrest of a dissident.
- Polina Ivanova
- Analysis
- Aviation
Belarus hijack darkens the skies for dissidents, airlines and the West
The democratic fraternity faces a testing moment as an embattled dictator threatens to up-end the norms of political asylum and civil aviation.
- Hans van Leeuwen
- Opinion
- Foreign relations
Lukashenko’s air piracy has no Western precedent
There’s a world of difference between what just happened to the Ryanair flight carrying a Belarusian journalist and to Bolivian president Evo Morales’s jet in 2013.
- Leonid Bershidsky
Belarus hijack poses threat to all civil aviation, UK says
The forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk creates uncertainty for everyone travelling by air, sparking a push for more sanctions on President Lukashenko.
- Updated
- Hans van Leeuwen
- Opinion
- Opinion
Skyjacking could bring down pariah state
The extraordinary forced landing of a commercial flight with a Belarusian dissident aboard escalated into one of the biggest flare-ups in East-West tensions in recent years.
- Anton Troianovski
- Opinion
- Terror charges
Belarus kidnapping sets a dangerous global precedent
The disturbing reality is that authoritarian countries are increasingly resorting to what Freedom House, a US-based pro-democracy organisation, calls in a report released in February, ‘transnational repression’.
- Gideon Rachman
January 2021
- Opinion
- US election
No gift for Putin from the Capitol
Unlike despots elsewhere, there was never a chance that Donald Trump could hang on to power.
- Leonid Bershidsky
August 2020
The woman who started a revolution in Belarus
As protests swell across the country, Belarusians are calling for the return of the unlikely politician Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
- Gareth Browne