Lukashenka Claims He Was Target Of Assassination Plot; Russia s FSB Links Two Belarusians To Alleged Coup
April 18, 2021 06:22 GMT
Updated
April 18, 2021 07:41 GMT
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Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka has claimed he was the target of a U.S.-backed assassination plot, and Russian intelligence said that two Belarusians detained in Moscow this week were allegedly linked to the plot.
In his announcement on April 17, Lukashenka did not provide evidence to back up his claim. U.S. officials did not immediately respond to the allegations.
But the head of Belarus’s main security agency, the KGB, tied the alleged plot to an online Zoom discussion room last summer that featured Belarusian experts, along with several former law enforcement officials, discussing the country’s political situation.
Yuras Zyankovich, who used to be a regional leader of the opposition Belarusian Popular Front (BNF) party and once sought to be its presidential candidate, has been living in the United States since 2007.
He is a graduate of Fordham University s School of Law in New York and is permanently based in Houston, Texas. Zyankovich frequently visits Belarus and actively takes part in the country s political life.
On April 12, the day of Zyankovich’s detention in Moscow, a noted Belarusian political analyst, Alyaksandr Fyaduta, went incommunicado in the Russian capital, where he works as a media consultant.
Moscow police said at the time that they had started looking for him after his relatives raised concerns about his whereabouts.