Belarus’ authoritarian leader is threatening to seize over 1,000 Lithuanian trucks stranded in the country following the closure of its border with Lithuania after repeated incursions by air balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes.
The European Union’s top human rights prize has been awarded to two imprisoned journalists who were honored for their defiance of the authorities in Belarus and Georgia.
Veteran Belarus opposition leader Mikalai Statkevich has vanished after refusing to leave the country in a U.S.-negotiated prisoner release in September, and human rights activists are demanding the government reveal his whereabouts.
The exiled head of Belarus’ opposition told The Associated Press that she thinks the country's iron-fisted leader Alexander Lukashenko wants to fool U.S. President Donald Trump using gestures like prisoner releases.
A swarm of Russian drones flew last week into Poland in what officials there regarded as a deliberate provocation.
Russia and Belarus have launched a long-planned joint military exercise involving thousands of troops that has raised concern in the West.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has hosted a military parade in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Human rights activists say female political prisoners in Belarus are often singled out for abuse and humiliation, threatened with losing their children, and having medical problems ignored.
For most of his quarter-century rule, President Vladimir Putin visited places like Paris, London, Vienna and New York.
A Belarusian journalist was convicted of treason and revealing state secrets and was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a closed trial.
Authorities in Belarus have launched new raids and detentions against government critics who participated in opposition rallies abroad earlier this year.
A cyberattack on Russian airline Aeroflot has caused a major outage, leading to over 100 flight cancellations and delays.
Authorities in Belarus continue their crackdown on dissent even as they release some of the prisoners.
President Donald Trump is in Europe for a two-day NATO summit laden with uncertainty over Iran’s response to U.S. airstrikes, the fate of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the future of U.S. troops based in NATO countries.
Belarusian dissident Siarhei Tsihanouski says he was held in solitary confinement, in conditions similar to torture, during five years in prison.
Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official.
U.S. President Donald Trump often says the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are among the events he is most excited about in his second term.
Authorities in Belarus have opened a criminal case against the 78-year-old activist who became the face of the country’s pro-democracy protests in 2020.
Belarus has released a U.S. citizen who had been jailed on allegations of plotting to assassinate the country’s authoritarian leader, charges his supporters and the U.S. government called bogus.
Dozens of journalists in Belarus have been imprisoned in recent years under a crackdown by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has been sworn in for a seventh term, and he mocked those who derided him as “Europe’s last dictator” by saying his country has more democracy “than those who cast themselves as its models.”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agrees in principle with a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine.
Rights groups, activists and independent media in Russia and Belarus endured increased government scrutiny, repressive laws and even were shut down and forced to operate from exile abroad.
When President Donald Trump froze foreign assistance for 90 days, he argued that such a drastic step was needed to eliminate waste and block what he derides as “woke” spending that doesn’t align with American interests.
Belarus’ opposition activists and Western officials have denounced an orchestrated election that extended the over three-decade rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Belarus has “unilaterally” freed an American woman from detention.
Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is all but certain to extend his more than three decades in power in Sunday’s election that is rejected by the opposition as a farce after years of sweeping repressions.
Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for over 30 years, is poised to extend his rule in an election that concludes Sunday and that the opposition dismisses as a farce.
Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate who won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Belarus and is one of hundreds of its political prisoners.
An imprisoned opposition leader in Belarus has resurfaced in a video shot by a pro-government blogger after over 700 days of no contact with his family.
Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko says his country is hosting dozens of Russian nuclear weapons and will prepare facilities for the planned deployment of Moscow’s newest hypersonic ballistic missile.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited Belarus to sign a treaty offering security guarantees, including the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons, to protect Moscow’s closest ally.
Belarus is cracking down on its LGBTQ+ community, detaining and beating nearly three dozen of them in the last three months.
Pakistani security forces are clearing the capital of Imran Khan supporters who gathered in their thousands to demand his release from prison.
Authorities say police are firing tear gas canisters at supporters of Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
A human rights report says hundreds of people in Belarus who have shown solidarity with Ukraine have been arrested in a sweeping crackdown under authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The father of imprisoned Belarusian opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova says she's considering asking authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko for a pardon after more than four years behind bars.
Human rights activists say imprisoned Belarusian opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova has resurfaced after more than 20 months without any communication from her, and has met with her father.
Belarus’ election commission has allowed seven politicians loyal to President Alexander Lukashenko to start collecting signatures to run in January’s election in an apparent bid to create a semblance of competition to the longtime authoritarian ruler.
A noted Belarusian film director and dissident who was held in Serbia for a year while Belarus sought his extradition has been released and gone to Germany.
Lawmakers in Belarus set the next presidential election for Jan. 26, a vote almost certain to extend the three-decade rule of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
An independent journalist in Belarus has been arrested on treason charges, the latest move in a relentless crackdown on news media by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government.
The last time any of Maria Kolesnikova’s family had contact with the imprisoned Belarusian opposition activist was more than 18 months ago.
A Belarusian-American has had his prison term extended to a total of 13 1/2 years in the latest move in a multi-pronged crackdown on dissent by Belarus’ authoritarian government.
Belarusian opposition leader in exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Thursday said 224 political prisoners in Belarus must be urgently released.
Belarusians are experiencing a new wave of Russification as Moscow expands its economic, political and cultural dominance to overtake the identity of its neighbor.
More than a half-million Belarusians have fled their country since 2020 as the authoritarian government cracked down its critics.
A wave of disappointment swept over opposition activists in Belarus last week as the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War unfolded and they learned it included none of the Belarusian political detainees who’ve been locked up for years by its authoritarian leader.
Belarus’ authoritarian leader has granted pardon to a German citizen who has been sentenced to death on terrorism charges.
Hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko has led Belarus for 30 years and intends to seek yet another term in office.
For three decades, European leaders have come and gone, but Alexander Lukashenko remains in absolute control of Belarus.
The wife of an imprisoned Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate says that the Belarusian authorities are depriving her husband of medicine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met for the second time in as many months as they visit Kazakhstan for a session of an international group founded to counter Western alliances.
Poland says neighboring Belarus and its main supporter and ally Russia are behind a recent surge in migrants from Belarus toward the European Union.
Hungary’s top diplomat has visited Belarus for talks on expanding ties despite the European Union’s sanctions against the country.
A Belarusian hacker activist group claims to have infiltrated the network of the country’s main security agency and obtained access to personal files of over 8,600 staffers of the KGB, the security service that still goes under its Soviet name.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has mocked a planned round of Ukraine peace talks in Switzerland, warning that Moscow will not accept any enforced agreements ignoring its interests.
A prominent journalist in Belarus has been designated a political prisoner by the country’s leading human rights group.
Thousands of Belarusians have been convicted on politically-driven charges over the last three years as part of the authorities' relentless crackdown on dissent.
Tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections in Belarus are set to cement the hard-line rule of the country’s authoritarian leader, despite a prominent opposition leader’s call for a boycott.
Dozens of clergy in Belarus — Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant — have been jailed, silenced or forced into exile for protesting the 2020 election that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term.
The family of imprisoned Belarusian opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova says it hasn't received a letter from her for a year.
The leaders of Russia and Belarus have discussed ways to further expand their alliance that has seen the deployment of some of Russia’s nuclear weapons on the territory of its neighbor.
A human rights group says that a political prisoner has died in prison in Belarus after authorities failed to provide him with proper medical care.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a law into effect that significantly tightens control over various religious denominations and organizations.
The president of Belarus says Russia has completed its shipments of short-range, tactical nuclear weapons to his country, an initiative that has raised strong concerns in neighboring Poland and elsewhere in the region.
A human rights activist imprisoned for three years in Belarus accused authorities of holding political prisoners in conditions amounting to “torture.”.
More than 2,400 Ukrainian children aged 6-17 have been taken to Belarus from four regions of Ukraine that are partially occupied by Russian forces, a study by Yale University has found.
An exiled Belarus activist has presented a second dossier of evidence to the International Criminal Court that he says proves the personal involvement of President Alexander Lukashenko in the illegal transfer of children to Belarus from Russian-occupied towns in Ukraine.
Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians who fled repression in their homeland face the prospect of having invalid documents after authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree halting passport renewals abroad.
The international Red Cross is calling for the ouster of the head of the Belarus Red Cross, who stirred international outrage for boasting that it was actively ferrying Ukrainian children from Russian-controlled areas to Belarus.
The foreign minister of Belarus says he can't envision a situation where his country would enter the war in Ukraine alongside Russian forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hosted a meeting with his Belarusian ally, who referred to this week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and suggested that Minsk could join Moscow’s efforts to revive an old alliance with Pyongyang.
Belarus’ authoritarian president banned citizens from renewing their passports while staying abroad, which could force those who fled the country amid growing repression to return to maintain their travel documents.
Yevgeny Prigozhin made his name as the profane and brutal mercenary boss who mounted an armed rebellion that was the most severe and shocking challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda says that Russia already is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus.
Poland is deploying thousands of troops to its border with pro-Russian Belarus, calling it a deterrent move as tensions between the neighbors ratchet up.
NATO allies located along the alliance’s eastern front are growing increasingly worried about the presence of Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries in Belarus.
Sometime this summer, if President Vladimir Putin can be believed, Russia moved some of its short-range nuclear weapons into Belarus, closer to Ukraine and onto the doorstep of NATO’s members in Central and Eastern Europe.
A prominent journalist in Belarus has been sentenced to six years in prison, the latest step in a years-long crackdown on opposition figures, independent journalists and human rights activists.
A new video appears to show Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin for the first time since he led a short-lived rebellion last month, and he is seen telling his troops they will spend time in Belarus training its military before deploying to Africa.
Authorities in Belarus have arrested a prominent journalist working with the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the latest step in a yearslong crackdown on opposition figures, independent journalists and human rights activists.
More mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner military contractor have rolled into Belarus, continuing their relocation to the ex-Soviet nation following last month’s short-lived mutiny.
An independent monitoring group says a large convoy carrying fighters from the Wagner private army has been spotted entering Belarus from Russia.
The Belarusian military has shown off a field camp it has offered to Russia’s Wagner military contractor if it relocates to Belarus under a deal that ended its mutiny.
Russia’s rebellious mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin walked free from prosecution for his June 24 armed mutiny, and it’s still unclear if anyone will face any charges in the brief uprising against the military or for the deaths of the soldiers killed in it.
The president of Belarus says the mercenary leader who led a short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin is in Russia and his troops are in their field camps.
Satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press on Saturday showed what appeared to be a newly built military-style camp in Belarus, with statements from a Belarusian guerrilla group and officials suggesting that it may be used to house fighters from the Wagner mercenary group.
A week after the mutiny raised the most daunting challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s rule in over two decades, key details about the uprising remain shrouded in mystery.
As life in Russia returns to normal after an armed rebellion by a mercenary group, tensions are rising in and around its neighbor Belarus, where the exiled leader of the force and some of its fighters are settling in.
The dramatic rebellion by a mercenary warlord in Russia that challenged President Vladimir Putin was punctuated by dramatic language of the key protagonists – and some long silences.
A Belarusian opposition figure says that he has provided the International Criminal Court with materials that allegedly detail President Alexander Lukashenko's involvement in the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus.