Putin agrees to help Belarus if ‘situation gets out of control’
VLADIMIR PUTIN has put Russian police on standby to be sent to Belarus to curb “extremist elements” taking part in mass protests against Alexander Lukashenko, the president.
Belarusian police launched a brutal crackdown on demonstrations this month after Mr Lukashenko, who has ruled the country for 26 years, claimed 80 per cent of the vote in a presidential election widely seen as rigged.
The Russian president said Mr Lukashenko had asked him “to form a reserve of law enforcement employees, and I have done so”.
He added: “We also agreed they would not be used unless the situation gets out of control.” Russia would intervene if “extremist elements, using political slogans as cover, overstep a certain boundary ... in general, however, the situation is levelling out”.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg yesterday called on Russia not to meddle in the crisis engulfing Belarus. “Belarus is a sovereign and independent state. And nobody, including Russia, should interfere there,” Mr Stoltenberg told Germany’s Bild newspaper.
♦ Mr Putin has dismissed accusations that Alexei Navalny was poisoned as “hasty and unfounded” in his first comments since the Russian opposition leader was taken ill on a flight a week ago. The Russian president said he would back a “thorough and objective investigation”, despite the Kremlin saying earlier that it saw no need for a criminal probe.
Doctors at the German hospital where Mr Navalny remains unconscious said multiple tests had shown that he had been poisoned.