BELARUS PROTESTS INTENSIFY AS LUKASHENKO SEEKS ARMY HELP

The streets of the Belarusian capital Minsk on Sunday erupted with roar and chants of “Go away!” as at least 100,000 opposition protesters filled the city’s main streets, demanding the resignation of the country’s embattled leader who had vowed to crack down on protests, Nataliya Vasilyeva wrote for The Telegraph on August 24, 2020.

The massive rally comes two weeks after Alexander Lukashenko, who has led Belarus for 26 years, was awarded a largely disputed landslide victory in the presidential election. He has asked the army to defend his regime and has toted an assault rifle to show he will fight to the death. Ensuing protests were met with unprecedented violence by riot police who fired rubber bullets at unarmed protesters, threw stun grenades and chased passers-by in remote residential neighborhoods.

It came as Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, called for a “dialogue with the population” and stressed that it was up to “the Belarusian people to decide how it can solve this situation.” At least 7,000 were swept up in the police crackdown, and many victims testified about beatings and torture.

After he was heckled by workers during a visit to a Minsk factory, President Lukashenko earlier this week managed to step away from what appeared like an imminent disaster. Authorities have been successful in halting a growing wave of industrial strikes and walk-outs at state-owned factories by threatening workers with dismissals and targeting popular leaders such as Minsk Tractor Factory worker Sergey Dylevsky who was questioned for four hours on Friday as part of a probe into attempts to topple a legitimate government.