Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Minsk on Saturday at the spot in the Belarusian capital where a protester died in clashes with police, calling for the country’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, to resign after 26 years in power. Saturday was the seventh consecutive day of large protests against the results of the presidential election in which election officials say Lukashenko won a sixth term in office. Despite harsh police action against the protesters, including the detention of 7,000 people, the demonstrations have swelled into the largest and most sustained wave of protest since Lukashenko took power in 1994. Lukashenko and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, discussed the protests in a call on Saturday, the first publicly known direct contact between the two leaders since the election. A Kremlin statement said Putin and Lukashenko both expressed hope for a quick resolution of the tensions.“These problems should not be exploited by destructive forces seeking to harm the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries within the framework of the union state,” the Kremlin said. Russia and Belarus reached an agreement in 1997 about closer ties, in a union stopping short of a full merger. Recently, there have been disputes between the countries, with Lukashenko suspicious that Putin wants to absorb Belarus. A funeral was held on Saturday for Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester who died in Minsk on Monday under disputed circumstances. Belarusian police said he died when an explosive device he intended to throw at officers blew up in his hand. But his partner, Elena German, told the Associated Press that when she saw his body in a morgue on Friday, his hands showed no damage and he had a perforation in his chest that she believes is a bullet wound.

All data is taken from the source: https://www.theguardian.com/
Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/15/belarus-president-appeals-to-russia-as-pressure-grows-on-him-to-go-alexander-lukashenko


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