UN experts say Belarus justice system used to target Lukashenko opponents
The experts say courts, police, security services, prosecutors, and prison authorities work together to silence critics.
On Tuesday, a drone was shot down over Lithuania after entering its airspace from neighboring Belarus, marking the first time such an incident occurred within Lithuanian territory. This development highlights Belarus' ongoing role in aiding Russia's drone attacks on Ukraine and as a source of potential threats to NATO territory.
The incident followed reports that Ukraine claimed Russia had been utilizing Belarusian mobile networks and signal repeaters to support Shahed-type drones during assaults on western Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's advisor, Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, stated that the flight paths of Russian drones during a recent attack suggested their use of mobile networks across the Belarusian border.
Ukrainian officials suspect these drones may have access to Belarusian commercial LTE networks. On Monday, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service reported that Russian attacks on western regions of Rivne, Volyn, and Lviv had been supported by communications infrastructure within Belarus. This information implies Russia is once again leveraging Belarusian communications resources to bolster its drone operations against Ukraine, following a June demand from Kyiv for the equipment to be shut down.
Ukraine's military intelligence chief, Oleh Ivashchenko, revealed that Kyiv had identified six repeater stations in Belarus utilized by Russian forces to transmit video streams from strike drones, with some of the equipment reportedly resuming operations. Tensions between Ukraine and Belarus have persisted since June, when Zelenskyy gave Belarus a week to dismantle or switch off Russian-installed repeaters, threatening unilateral action if compliance was not met.
The repeaters reportedly stopped functioning by June 22, although it is unclear if they were entirely dismantled. Their resurgence provides Russia with an additional means to maintain communications with strike drones operating near Ukraine's northern and western borders, including areas bordering NATO. Russia has increasingly relied on a combination of mobile networks and radio technology to sustain connections with long-range strike drones and overcome Ukrainian electronic warfare capabilities.
Written by urgent.news from Euronews's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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