JOURNALIST ‘ABDUCTION’ RISKS PUTIN’S IRE

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of abducting a journalist from Vladimir Putin’s favourite newspaper, risking a split with his only remaining ally.

Security officers from Belarus’s KGB service allegedly kidnapped Gennady Mozheiko, a reporter from Russia’s best-selling tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, in Moscow after he wrote about one of their most controversial operations.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years, has cracked down fiercely on discussion of the raid, in which an IT worker shot and killed a KGB officer after security forces broke down his door. More than 200 people have been detained within Belarus merely for discussing the operation on social media. Analysts say the regime’s anxiety stems from the fact the IT worker, Andrei Zeltser, fought back against the KGB, an almost unheard of act of defiance.