Russian Embassy Monitoring Situation With Russian Citizens Detained In Belarus - Lavrov

Russia is keeping a close eye on the situation with Russian citizens detained in Belarus through its embassy, while its law enforcement authorities discuss the matter with their Belarusian colleagues, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2022) Russia is keeping a close eye on the situation with Russian citizens detained in Belarus through its embassy, while its law enforcement authorities discuss the matter with their Belarusian colleagues, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier in the day that Russian President Vladimir Putin is also addressing the detention of citizens in Belarus in talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko.

"Our embassy regularly monitors how the processes with detained Russian citizens unfold. There is a dialogue through the law enforcement agencies and through the general prosecutor's offices. There are issues that require close cooperation between law enforcement authorities.

I do not want to talk about them publicly at the moment, but they do exist. And it is very important that they are resolved in a way fitting allies and brothers," Lavrov said in an interview with Sputnik, Echo of Moscow, Govorit Moskva and the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio stations.

In May, the Belarusian authorities arrested Russian national Sofia Sapega along with her Belarusian boyfriend Roman Protasevich, a co-founder of the Nexta Telegram channel (labeled as extremist in Belarus), on charges of releasing the private data of Belarusian security officers into the public domain.

In late December, a court in Minsk sentenced Russian citizen Egor Dudnikov to 11 years in prison for inciting social hostility and calling for actions threatening the national security of Belarus.