"Facts not presented": the Russian Embassy called for the release of Russians detained in Belarus

Employees of the Russian Embassy in Belarus met with 33 Russian citizens detained on the territory of the republic. Consul Kirill Pletnev spoke about this.

He specified that the meeting, which was attended by the consul and the head of the consular section, took place yesterday in one of the local penitentiary institutions.

Pletnev added that each of the Russians was presented with a decision on the application of a preventive measure in the form of detention, noting that the documents "clearly show the tendentious direction of the actions of the Belarusian authorities."

“In particular, I would like to note that the intentional actions of a group of persons by prior agreement together with (blogger Sergei - RT ) Tikhanovsky and (arrested Belarusian oppositionist Nikolai  - RT ) Statkevich are indicated, which, in our opinion, is absolutely far-fetched and invalid position, "he explained on the air of the TV channel" Russia 24 ".

In turn, the Russian Ambassador to Belarus Dmitry Mezentsev called for the release of the Russians.

“We insist on the early release of our citizens and close interaction with the law enforcement agencies of Belarus and lawyers,” TASS quotes the head of the diplomatic mission.

Mezentsev added that Minsk did not provide evidence to suggest that these people were ready to disrupt public order.

“I emphasize: we cannot agree with this, because there are no grounds and no facts have been presented that confirm such a suspicion,” the ambassador said.

Meanwhile, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, said that the political elites and government circles in Europe consider the current situation to be a staged action, which arouses the regret of the Russian side.

In addition, the head of the SVR called the comments of the Belarusian media covering this situation extremely illogical. He expressed the hope that the incident with the detention of the Russians will be settled and overcome. 

“This is in the interests of developing friendly, fraternal relations between our two countries and two peoples,” Naryshkin said.

The day before, the head of the Belarusian investigative group, Alexander Agafonov, said that the Russians were interrogated by investigators with the participation of the defense. According to him, 11 people intended to fly to Venezuela, 15 went to the Republic of Turkey, two to Cuba, one to Syria. Another man did not name the place of the visit; three refused to testify.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, commenting on the incident, explained that a group of Russian citizens followed in transit through Minsk to Istanbul, they had all the necessary documents with them, including air tickets.

The ministry pointed out that a Belarusian company was engaged in the logistics of citizens who, for unknown reasons, did not get on their flight. The Russians were forced to stay in the republic to purchase tickets for another flight.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called on Minsk to refuse to whip up "unnecessary negative emotions" during the presidential elections in Belarus, and also noted that "an attempt to present what happened as external interference in the affairs of the republic is at least puzzling." 

“We count on a balanced and objective approach of the Belarusian side to the establishment of all the circumstances of what happened in close cooperation with the Russian side,” the ministry concluded.

Prior to that, the Kremlin also reacted to the situation with the detention of Russians. Thus, the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that Moscow expects to receive comprehensive data on what happened.

“There is no information about any illegal actions of the Russians that could become a reason for the arrest, we do not know anything about this,” he said. 

It should be reminded that on Wednesday, July 29, the Belarusian news agency BelTA reported about the detention of 33 Russians, who are allegedly “fighters of a foreign private company Wagner,” near Minsk. Later, in another material, it was claimed that more than 200 people allegedly arrived in Belarus "to destabilize the situation during the election campaign" (presidential elections in Belarus are scheduled for August 9, 2020).