MOSCOW — Protesters on Sunday once more flooded into the capital of Belarus and cities throughout the nation, signaling the depth of anger at President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, an iron-fisted chief who, fortified by sturdy help from Russia, has proven no signal of bending.
The Belarus protests have mobilized giant numbers of individuals for almost a month, since a disputed presidential election, and have been dominated by requires Mr. Lukashenko to resign. They’ve struggled, although, to bend the desire of an authoritarian chief who has rejected all compromise and scorned his critics as “rats,” “tricksters” and “traitors.”
The gang on Sunday in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, appeared to be as giant as these on three earlier Sundays, when greater than 100,000 folks gathered to protest what they imagine was a blatantly rigged presidential election on Aug. 9 and to demand that the declared victor, Mr. Lukashenko, cede energy.
Defying authorities warnings, protesters in Minsk paraded up to strains of riot law enforcement officials blocking main avenues, shouting, “Disgrace!” and “Go away.” They waved pink and white flags, which served because the nationwide flag till Mr. Lukashenko changed it 25 years in the past — a 12 months after he took workplace — with a extra Soviet-looking commonplace.
Smaller protests had been reported in Brest, a metropolis in the west on the border with Poland; Grodno, a hotbed of opposition sentiment in the northwest; Gomel, a city in the southeast close to Russia the place Mr. Lukashenko has staged numerous pro-government rallies, and a number of other different cities.
In an effort to cut back the scale of the protests in Minsk, the authorities sealed off streets in the town’s heart, shut down metro stations and deployed hundreds of riot law enforcement officials. They arrested scores of individuals but principally avoided the heavy-handed violence that was seen when the protests started final month.
Russia’s Interfax information company reported that a number of folks had been injured when safety officers broke up a protest exterior a state-run tractor manufacturing unit. RIA-Novosti, a state-controlled Russian information company, quoted the Belarusian Inside Ministry as saying that “a whole lot” of individuals had been arrested in Sunday’s protests.
The variety of demonstrators in Minsk and elsewhere gave weight to an assertion on Friday by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Mr. Lukashenko’s primary rival in the disputed election, who mentioned that, “it’s not possible to pressure the folks to again down,” and that the protest motion had “reached the purpose of no return.”
But it’s unclear how Ms. Tikhanovskaya, who fled to neighboring Lithuania after difficult the election consequence, and different opposition leaders can pressure Mr. Lukashenko to bow to undimmed public anger over his claims of a re-election landslide.
On the lookout for methods to improve strain on Mr. Lukashenko, Ms. Tikhanovskaya instructed the United Nations throughout a casual assembly by video hyperlink final week that the president was “desperately clinging to energy” and wanted to be prodded by the worldwide group. She urged the United Nations to ship worldwide screens to Belarus, one thing that Russia, a everlasting member of the Safety Council, would nearly actually forestall.
The Belarusian authorities, calculating that it could sap the power of the protest motion by eradicating its leaders, has arrested most of Mr. Lukashenko’s most outspoken opponents and compelled others to depart the nation.
On Saturday, Olga Kovalkova, an ally of Ms. Tikhanovskaya, turned the newest opponent of Mr. Lukashenko to be compelled to depart Belarus. Arrested two weeks in the past in Minsk, she reappeared on Saturday in Poland. She instructed a information convention in Warsaw that Belarusian safety officers put her head in a hood, bundled her right into a automotive that drove throughout the nation after which dumped her on the border with Poland. The Belarusian Inside Ministry instructed a Russian information company that she had been launched for medical causes.
With Belarusian safety forces displaying no signal of wavering in their help, Mr. Lukashenko has in current days moved to shore up help from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, with whom he has usually had testy relations. Mr. Putin introduced late final month that he had fashioned a reserve pressure of safety personnel prepared for motion in Belarus if “the state of affairs will get uncontrolled.”
Mr. Lukashenko has reshuffled the management of Belarus’s primary safety company, which works by its Soviet-era identify, the Ok.G.B., appointing a brand new chief, Ivan Tertel, who is understood for his shut ties to Russia’s Federal Safety Service.
Mr. Tertel’s predecessor, Valery Vakulchik, presided over the arrest in July of 33 Russian residents whom he described on the time as mercenaries despatched to Belarus by Moscow to fire up unrest earlier than the presidential election.
The Russian fighters have since been freed, and each Moscow and Minsk have sought to put the episode behind them, saying it was orchestrated by Ukraine and the USA to strive to drive a wedge between Mr. Putin and Mr. Lukashenko.
In a weird effort to show his loyalty to Moscow, Mr. Lukashenko on Wednesday offered an alternate idea on the current poisoning of the Russian opposition chief Aleksei A. Navalny, who’s being handled in Berlin. He instructed Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, that Germany had plotted with Poland to fabricate the poisoning in order to deter Mr. Putin from meddling in Belarus.
As proof, he provided a recording of what was described as an intercepted phone name between German and Polish officers. The recording, that includes two males, recognized as Mike and Nick, talking English, was launched on a social media channel tied to Mr. Lukashenko’s administration and extensively dismissed as a risible pretend.
And in one other gesture towards Moscow, Belarusian safety officers have arrested Irina Sukhi, an environmental activist who has campaigned in opposition to a nuclear energy station constructed in Belarus close to the border with Lithuania by Rosatom, a state-owned Russian firm. The arrest was reported on Sunday by Ms. Sukhi’s daughter, Sophie Sadovskaya.
