Sorted by date Results 26 - 38 of 38
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An American who faces criminal charges from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is seeking asylum in Belarus, the country's state TV reported, in a move that could further heighten tensions between the turbulent former Soviet nation and the United States. Evan Neumann of Mill Valley, California, acknowledged in an interview with the Belarus 1 channel that he was at the Capitol that day but rejected the charges, which include assaulting police, obstruction and other offenses. The channel aired excerpts of the interview on S...
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus' authoritarian leader on Monday denied that his government unleashed massive repression of dissent after his re-election a year ago triggered a monthslong wave of mass protests, even as his law enforcement officials admitted receiving nearly 5,000 complaints about beatings and torture. President Alexander Lukashenko's remarks came during an epic eight-hour press conference on the anniversary of the vote that handed him a sixth term but was denounced by the opposition and the West as rigged. The event, during which L...
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As fear of repression rises among Belarusians following the arrest of a dissident journalist whose plane was forcibly diverted to Minsk, those who want to leave the country are feeling increasingly cornered. Its land borders already were under tight restrictions, and now the European Union has banned flights from Belarus after a jetliner was diverted to Minsk earlier this week and authorities arrested a dissident journalist who was aboard. That leaves opposition-minded Belarusians with few options to get out from under t...
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Authorities in Belarus detained a leader of striking factory workers and threatened demonstrators with criminal charges Friday in a bid to stop the massive post-election protests challenging the country's authoritarian president, who accused the United States of fomenting the unrest. Investigators also summoned several opposition activists for questioning as part of a criminal probe into a council they created with the goal of coordinating a transition of power for the ex-Soviet nation that President Alexander L...
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — The president of Belarus said Friday that his government thwarted a foreign-inspired plot to destabilize the ex-Soviet nation before the August presidential election in which he is seeking a sixth term. The claim by President Alexander Lukashenko followed the detention Thursday of potentially his top election challenger, the former head of a Russia-owned bank, and reflects the growing strain in his relations with Russia. The authoritarian Lukashenko, who has been in office for nearly 26 years, said, "The authorities h...
ZHYTOMYR, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's Prosecutor General said on Friday that his office is reviewing several cases related to the owner of a gas company where former Vice President Joe Biden's son sat on the board, as part of a review of all the criminal cases closed by his predecessors. U.S. President Donald Trump had pressed for such a review in a phone call with Ukraine's new leader, a "favor" that now has led the U.S. Congress to begin an impeachment inquiry. Ruslan Ryaboshapka's statement shows that Kyiv is under an increasing pressure to r...
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and European powers, anxious to end a protracted military conflict in eastern Ukraine, on Wednesday welcomed the new accord between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists but many in Ukraine dismissed it as a capitulation to Russia. In the deal signed Tuesday with the separatists, Ukraine, Russia and European mediators pledged to hold a local election in Ukraine's rebel-held east, where a grinding five-year conflict between the separatists and Ukrainian troops has killed more than 13,000 people. Ukrainian President V...
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's former president said Wednesday he discussed investments with President Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in 2017, but that he never discussed Ukrainian companies with any U.S. official. Like many Ukrainians, former President Petro Poroshenko is trying to distance himself from the U.S. impeachment inquiry into Trump, triggered by a phone call between the American leader and Poroshenko's successor, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "We definitely do not want to be involved in the political process inside the United S...
HEMEIMEEM AIR BASE, Syria (AP) — The Russian military said Friday it has downed dozens of drones and rockets launched by militants this year targeting Russia's air base in Syria. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that so far in 2019 the military has shot down 58 drones and 27 rockets that targeted the Hemeimeem air base in Syria's Mediterranean province of Latakia. Russia has waged a military campaign in Syria since September 2015, allowing Bashar Assad's government to reclaim control over most of the country a...
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian Orthodox leaders on Saturday approved the creation of a unified church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate and elected a leader to head that new church — a move that could exponentially raise tensions with neighboring Russia. The vote, held at a closed-door synod in Kiev's St. Sophia Cathedral, is the latest in a series of confrontations between Ukraine and authorities in Russia, including President Vladimir Putin's government. Ahead of the vote, the Russian Orthodox Church called on the United Nations, the...
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — To mimic gore, they used makeup and pig's blood. They shot bullet holes in one of his sweatshirts. And to top off Arkady Babchenko's staged murder, they even took him to the morgue. The journalist revealed Thursday how Ukrainian security services faked his murder to thwart a contract hit allegedly arranged by Babchenko's native Russia. Police said Tuesday night that Babchenko had been shot and killed in his apartment building. The next day, he showed up alive in front of journalists and authorities revealed that it all h...
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — The abrupt resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan after two weeks of protests against his rule has caught the opposition off guard: The protesters had focused on driving out what they consider a corrupt elite, and seem to lack the structure or the political platform to replace it. Waving the Armenian tricolor and chanting their leader's name, some 10,000 opposition supporters marched on Tuesday with protest leader Nikol Pashinian to a hilltop memorial complex in Yerevan, the capital of this Caucasus M...
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Russia and Belarus began major war games Thursday, an operation involving thousands of troops, tanks and aircraft on NATO's eastern edge practicing how to hunt down and destroy armed spies, among other maneuvers. The Zapad (West) 2017 maneuvers, which are mainly taking place in Belarus this year, have caused concern among members of the Western military alliance and in neighboring countries. Some NATO members, including the Baltic states and Poland, have criticized a lack of transparency about the exercises and questioned...
