Number of US nationals ‘were detained’ in Belarus ahead of election – President Lukashenko

President Aleksandr Lukashenko was quoted as saying on Thursday that Belarus had detained a number of people who possessed US passports and were married to US women ahead of the country’s presidential elections to be held on August 9. Lukashenko provided no further details of the detainees. The US embassy has not immediately commented on the statement.

The president said that “quite a lot of people have been detained who were going to destabilize the situation in the country ahead of elections,” Belta news agency reported.

The campaign manager of Belarus’ leading opposition candidate was briefly detained on Thursday, her office said. Maria Moroz was detained by the Interior Ministry after visiting the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk, a spokeswoman for presidential hopeful Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told AFP, then quickly announced that she had been freed.

The ministry said that Moroz had been “invited for a conversation” and denied she had been arrested.