MOSCOW (AP) – The Kremlin demanded Friday that Belarus temporarily release 33 Russian personal security contractors who were held for terrorism, ignoring allegations of plots of the presidential crusade in Belarus as false.
The accusations are an unprecedented escalation of tensions between Russia and neighboring Belarus, close allies, as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko seeks a sixth term in the 9th of August elections.
Belarusian officials said workers from Russian army contractor Wagner, who were arrested Wednesday, face a criminal investigation into the fees for planning terrorist attacks in Belarus during the country’s presidential election campaign.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities announced Friday that they would ask Belarus to hand over 28 of the detainees accused of fighting alongside Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine.
Wagner is related to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman who was charged in the United States for meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. The company is said to have deployed piles of army contractors in eastern Ukraine, Syria and Libya.
Independent observers and opposition supporters in Belarus see the arrest of Russians as part of authoritarian Lukashenko’s efforts to consolidate the weakening of public support.
The Kremlin, which first reacted cautiously to Belarus’s decision, hardened its stance on Friday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia expects Belarus to release detainees quickly.
“The unwarranted detention of the 33 Russian citizens is not a component of Allied relations,” Peskov said in a conference call with journalists. “We expect our Belarusian allies to explain this incident and release our citizens.”
Peskov said members of a Russian security company were heading to an unspecified country and were arrested after not having a connecting flight to Istanbul at the airport in Minsk, the Belarusian capital.
“They didn’t do anything and they didn’t bring any illegal items,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Minsk said Friday that the Belarusian government had complied with its request for consular detentions.
Experts say Belarus has long provided a transit hall for delicate Russian operations abroad. Lukashenko now seems to be looking to use a Russian deployment of the regime for his own political gain.
Throughout his 26 years as president, Lukashenko, a former director of collective farms, trusted Russian subsidies to maintain the nation’s Soviet-style economy, but resisted Moscow’s efforts for closer integration of neighboring nations. He has accused the Kremlin of encouraging plans to integrate Belarus into Russia and has promised to resist them.
The 65-year-old Belarusian leader is campaigning to maintain his office amid a wave of opposition protests driven by tiredness and anger over his iron reign and the fatal economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Belarusian election officials prevented their two main rivals from registering to oppose it. One of them imprisoned for what his followers call false accusations. The other fled to Russia with his children after security officials claimed they would arrest him and take his children.
The opposition has joined another candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, wife of a imprisoned opposing blogger.
On Thursday, the BelarusIan Investigative Committee connected the Russians detained with her husband from a criminal investigation into alleged arrangements for “mass riots.”
Speaking Thursday at a rally in Minsk that attracted tens of thousands of people to the largest demonstration since the start of the presidential campaign, Tikhanovskaya downplayed the accusations against her husband as a crude fabrication.
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Yuras Karmanau in Minsk contributed to this report.