Russia Destroys Drones Targeting Moscow, and Blames Ukraine
The recent high school graduate selected her wardrobe carefully as she headed off to a summer folk festival.
She dressed all in white, as is customary for the event, and wore a large flower wreath in her golden hair. But when it came to choosing a sash for her skirt, she grabbed a brown leather band, avoiding the color red.
In Belarus, red and white are the colors of the protest movement against the country’s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. And even the smallest sign of protest can land a person in jail. “I worry about attracting the wrong kind of attention from the authorities,” said the young woman, who spoke on the condition that her name not be used so she would not draw scrutiny.
After claiming victory in a widely disputed presidential election three years ago, Mr. Lukashenko violently crushed the outraged protests that followed. Since then, activists and opposition figures say, Mr. Lukashenko has ushered in a chilling era of repression in Belarus.
He is moving ever closer to his patron, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, positioning himself as an invaluable military ally to Russia in its war against Ukraine, but also cracking down on dissent in a way that is invisible to much of the world but rivals that of Mr. Putin’s punitive regime.
Belarusian security forces are rounding up opposition figures, journalists, lawyers and even people committing minor offenses like commenting on social media memes or walking a dog without a leash.
In particular, the country’s security forces are intent on finding and punishing the people who participated in the 2020 protests. Belarusians are getting arrested for wearing red and white, sporting a tattoo of a raised fist — also a symbol of the protest movement — or for just being seen in three-year-old photographs of the anti-government demonstrations.
“In the last three years, we went from a soft autocracy to neo-totalitarianism,” said Igor Ilyash, a journalist who opposes Mr. Lukashenko’s rule. “They are criminalizing the past.”
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