A Ukrainian citizen has been held in custody in Belarus for over a month
In Belarus, 29-year-old Ukrainian citizen Bohdan Gerish has been held in custody for two months now; he was detained while traveling through the country in transit.
According to human rights activists, on May 6, the man was traveling by bus from Latvia to Poland through Belarus. During a border check, Belarusian security forces detained him and confiscated his phone, documents, and Italian residence permit.
On May 8, the Ukrainian man informed his family that he had been arrested for 15 days. Since then, all contact with him has been lost. According to his family, he is currently being held in a temporary detention center in Grodno, and his lawyer has been unable to obtain permission to meet with him.
Human rights activists note that since the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, cases of Ukrainians being detained in Belarus have become significantly more frequent.
Source: Viasna Human Rights Center.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Russia is attempting to draw Belarus deeper into the war against Ukraine and is considering new scenarios for aggression from its territory.
Belarus’s self-proclaimed president, Alexander Lukashenko, held a meeting on military equipment and announced the preparation of a new state armament program for 2026–2030.
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