BELARUS OPPN FIGURE HELD WHILE TRYING TO CROSS INTO UKRAINE

MINSK: One of Belarus’s leading opposition figures Maria Kolesnikova has been detained while trying to cross into Ukraine, Belarusian border officials said on Tuesday.

Kolesnikova was detained while attempting to cross overnight with two other members of the opposition’s Coordination Council who were able to pass through to Ukraine, Anton Bychkovsky, a spokesman for the state border committee, said.

She and the two other council members, press secretary Anton Rodnenkov and executive secretary Ivan Kravtsov, had disappeared on Monday. Bychkovsky said Rodnenkov and Kravtsov were able to cross into Ukraine, and the Ukrainian embassy in Minsk confirmed to AFP they were in the country.

Kolesnikova was being held and “an investigation is under way to legally assess the situation,” Bychkovsky said.

State news agency Belta quoted border officials as saying the three had tried to cross the border in a BMW car around 4am on Tuesday.

The Coordination Council was set up to ensure a peaceful transfer of power after President Alexander Lukashenko’s main rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya rejected his claim to have won an August 9 presidential election. The disputed election has sparked widespread protests and a harsh police crackdown.

Germany and Britain have demanded answers after Kolesnikova went missing and allies said she had been snatched off the streets. Kolesnikova, 38, is the only one of the trio of women who fronted Tikhanovskaya’s campaign to remain in Belarus.

Tikhanovskaya left the country under pressure from the authorities and was granted refuge in Lithuania, while her other campaign partner, Veronika Tsepkalo, is now in Ukraine.