A Moscow court said on March 21 it has sentenced local resident Yury Samoilov to 14 days in jail for having an image of the shoulder sleeve insignia of Ukraine's Azov Regiment as a screensaver on his smartphone. Samoilov was found guilty of distributing extremist materials.
Jailed RFE/RL journalist Ihar Losik may still be in solitary confinement, sources told RFE/RL's Belarus Service, following a rights-group report that he had been taken to hospital after cutting himself with a sharp instrument to protest against orders given to him by prison guards.
Russia's Foreign Ministry on March 21 summoned Minister Counsellor Brian Ebel of the Canadian Embassy in Moscow over Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly's recent statements regarding her country's efforts against Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch and several other groups have urged Belarus on March 21 not to extradite Tajik opposition activist Nizomiddin Nasriddinov, saying he "would be at serious risk of arbitrary detention and torture on the basis of his political beliefs."
Seven out of 30 allies met NATO's military spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, one country less than in 2021 before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the alliance's chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said on March 21.