Belarus Protest Leader Vanishes Amid Reports of Masked Abductors

MOSCOW — Maria Kolesnikova, the final distinguished protest chief in Belarus nonetheless at massive, vanished on Monday and native information media shops reported that she had been grabbed off the road by masked kidnappers within the middle of the East European nation’s capital, bundled right into a darkish minivan and pushed away at pace.

The kidnapping of Ms. Kolesnikova, the most recent in a sequence of disappearances apparently engineered by Belarus’s safety businesses, adopted massive protests on Sunday in Minsk, the capital, and cities throughout the nation. It appeared to mirror a shift in technique from the preliminary frenzy of police violence in opposition to protesters to selecting off opposition leaders one after the other and sending them out of the nation.

Linas Linkevicius, the overseas minister of neighboring Lithuania, stated Ms. Kolesnikova had been the sufferer of a “kidnapping,” deploring in a Twitter post that “Stalinist N.Ok.V.D. strategies are being utilized in 21st century Europe.”

The N.Ok.V.D. was the precursor of the Ok.G.B., a reputation nonetheless proudly embraced by the principle safety company in Belarus, a former Soviet republic that has typically been described as “Europe’s final dictatorship.”

At a information convention on Monday in Warsaw, the capital of neighboring Poland, exiled members of a coordination council arrange final month in Minsk by opponents of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko stated that Ms. Kolesnikova, a member of the council’s presidium, had disappeared and not using a hint off the road in Minsk within the morning.

Olga Kovalkova, a member of the council who was herself arrested two weeks in the past in Minsk after which compelled to go away Belarus for Poland over the weekend, stated that Ms. Kolesnikova had been “kidnapped in central Minsk” by “unknown folks.”

“Her whereabouts are unknown,” Mrs. Kovalkova added.

Tut, a Belarusian information website sympathetic to the opposition, quoted a witness to Ms. Kolesnikova’s abduction as saying that the opposition chief had been strolling close to the Nationwide Artwork Museum in Minsk when she was confronted by masked folks in civilian garments and pushed right into a ready van marked with the phrase “Communication.”

Ms. Kolesnikova first gained prominence as an election marketing campaign supervisor for Viktor Babariko, a distinguished Belarusian banker who had deliberate to run in opposition to Mr. Lukashenko in August. Earlier than he may problem the president, nevertheless, he was arrested on what have been extensively seen as trumped up monetary costs. He’s nonetheless in jail.

After utilizing typically savage violence in opposition to protesters however nonetheless failing final month to tamp down widespread anger over the Aug. 9 election, by which the president claimed an implausible landslide victory, Mr. Lukashenko’s safety equipment appears to have adopted a subtler tactic of focused assaults on protest leaders.

Mr. Linkevicius accused Mr. Lukashenko, whom he described as Belarus’s “outgoing management,” of making an attempt to “remove” his most outspoken foes “one after the other.”

Ms. Kolesnikova’s disappearance removes the final member nonetheless energetic inside Belarus of a trio of feminine activists behind a groundswell of opposition to Mr. Lukashenko. The opposite two, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Mr. Lukashenko’s primary challenger within the disputed election, and Veronika Tsepkalo, the spouse of a would-be candidate who fled earlier than polling day, each left Belarus to keep away from arrest quickly after Mr. Lukashenko claimed re-election.

Maksim Znak, a member of the opposition council’s presidium, stated on Monday that the physique coordinating protests must rethink its method as a result of all however two members of its management had vanished into jail or been pressured into leaving the nation. The 2 remaining members, he stated, are himself and the Nobel-prize profitable author, Svetlana Alexievich, who has been referred to as in for questioning however to this point prevented detention.

As a substitute of merely throwing his most distinguished opponents in jail, which might danger inflaming public anger, Mr. Lukashenko has began pressuring them to flee to both Lithuania or Poland, each members of NATO, after which casting them as traitors working with Western powers to undermine each Belarus and Russia.

Mr. Lukashenko, who has dominated Belarus since 1994, has repeatedly introduced weeks of unrest as a NATO plot and used this to rally help for his authorities from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. When the protests began almost a month in the past, Mr. Putin provided solely lukewarm backing however, complaining of Western meddling, he introduced late final month that he had shaped a reserve power of Russian safety officers prepared for motion in Belarus if “the scenario will get out of management.”

By stripping the opposition of its management, Mr. Lukashenko apparently hopes to steadily stall the protests’ momentum, permitting his safety forces to frighten those that proceed protesting with the menace of mass arrests. The Inside Ministry stated on Monday that almost 700 protesters had been arrested on Sunday.

On Saturday, Ms. Kovalkova, an ally of Ms. Tikhanovskaya, turned the most recent opponent of Mr. Lukashenko to be compelled to go away Belarus. Arrested two weeks in the past in Minsk, she all of a sudden reappeared in Poland. She advised the information convention in Warsaw that Ok.G.B. officers in Minsk had provided a stark selection: both keep in jail indefinitely or depart the nation.

She stated Belarusian safety officers put her head in a hood, bundled her right into a automobile that drove throughout the nation after which dumped her on the border with Poland. The Belarusian Inside Ministry advised a Russian information company that she had been launched for medical causes.

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting